1 week Ago By [email protected](KoreaTimes)
Citizens gather at Seoul Station in central Seoul, Thursday, as President Yoon Suk Yeol appears on a televised address explaining why he declared martial law on Dec. 3. Yonhap Decoding president's Dec.
3 martial law decision By Kang Hyun-kyung Koreans watched TV in utter disbelief when President Yoon Suk Yeol unexpectedly declared martial law during a televised address late on the night of Dec. 3. In Korea, martial law serves as a chilling reminder of the past military dictatorship and its rule by an iron fist.
Living in a fully functioning democracy, the Korean public sees martial law as a relic of the past, something hardly likely to happen in today’s society. But the unthinkable happened, leaving Koreans to question what went wrong with the president. Some even began to doubt Yoon's mental state at the time of his martial law declaration.
Koreans were left puzzled about Yoon’s motives, as his bombshell announcement not only stunned the nation but also thrust Korea into the spotlight of unwanted global attention. On Thursday, Yoon broke his silence, finally answering the question of why he went too far. In his fourth televised address since the brief declaration of martial law, Yoon explained that he was deeply concerned about the integrity of the nation’s election system.
He added that this worry was one of the key factors that led him to declare martial law. Yoon said he was shocked after being briefed on the results of the National Intelligence Service's (NIS) cybersecurity checkup last year. The report revealed that the NEC’s network system was vulnerable to cyberattacks and hacking attempts.
“Elections are at the heart of democracy, but the NEC’s capability of managing elections is questionable. I was wondering if voters would trust the election results when its cybersecurity is so vulnerable to cyberattacks and hacking,” he said. “The NEC is a Constitutional institution and people from the judiciary (judges) serve as its board members.
Because of this, it’s tough for investigators to get approval when they seek arrest and search warrants because (judges review and approve warrants). Investigators find it almost impossible to conduct a probe if the NEC refuses to cooperate with them.” Yoon said this explained why he directed former Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun to go after the NEC and check and fix its network system.
A colonel from the Korea Defense Intelligence Command takes a photo of the National Election Commission's server on Dec. 3 at the election watchdog's office in Gwacheon City, Gyeonggi Province. Yonhap Yoon had long harbored suspicions about the election results, dating back to 2020, when the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) dominated the National Assembly elections despite the unpopularity of the Moon Jae-in government.
He was determined to declare a brief martial law to investigate and secure evidence to determine whether the allegations of election fraud were true. After Yoon’s declaration, hundreds of troops were quickly dispatched to the NEC headquarters in Gwacheon City, Gyeonggi Province, and two other NEC-related facilities in Seoul and Suwon City. Some troops even entered a room housing the NEC’s server and inspected it.
The involvement of troops at the election watchdog’s facilities during martial law raised questions among the public about their true purpose. Days later, those close to Yoon began to testify about his obsession with so-called conspiracy theories regarding election fraud. Rep.
Lee Jun-seok, the former leader of the ruling People Power Party (PPP) who later left the party and was elected on a minor party's ticket in the April 10 National Assembly elections, recalled his first in-person, one-on-one meeting with Yoon. “He told me, ‘Mr. chairman, I tried to send several prosecutors to the NEC in Incheon to investigate the election fraud allegations, when I was serving as prosecutor general.
Allegations of election fraud were the first and one of the topics of our conversation that day,” Lee wrote in a social media post on Dec. 6, three days after Yoon’s short-lived declaration of martial law. Yoon was referring to allegations surrounding the 2020 National Assembly elections.
During those elections, the DPK, which was the ruling party at the time, achieved a landslide victory, securing 180 seats in the 300-member National Assembly. The overwhelming win dealt a crushing blow to the main opposition Mirae Party, the predecessor of the PPP, which managed to secure only 103 seats. The results sparked numerous allegations and controversies about possible election irregularities at the time.
Lee dismissed the allegations of a rigged election, firmly denying their validity. He accused right-wing YouTubers and activists, who were persistently promoting such claims, of disseminating fake news about the election results. He alleged that Yoon, who was then the PPP’s presidential candidate for the 2022 election, was surrounded by individuals who believed in conspiracy theories.
“Whenever he acted irrationally, I made every effort to distance him from those influences,” Lee said. “But now I realize that Yoon himself was deeply obsessed with the conspiracy theory.” Poll workers count ballots on April 10 in Seoul's western district of Yeongdeungpo.
The National Assembly elections were held that day and vote counting began immediately after the polls closed. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul Two colonel-level officials from the Korea Defense Intelligence Command (KDIC), dressed in military uniforms, were seen in the NEC’s computer room. They were observed filming the server that stored voter rolls and election materials related to early voting.
KDIC is a military intelligence unit tasked with conducting covert operations to infiltrate North Korea and gather intelligence about the regime. According to a report by TV Chosun, a cable channel operated by the conservative newspaper Chosun Ilbo, the presence of KDIC officials in the NEC’s server room may point to allegations of North Korean interference in South Korea’s elections. In his Dec.
3 televised address, Yoon referred to the main opposition DPK as “anti-government forces” and “North Korea followers,” although he did not elaborate on the reasons for those accusations. It remains unclear whether Yoon intended to imply a connection between the DPK and North Korean hackers. SBS, one of South Korea’s terrestrial broadcasters, reported earlier this week that Yeo In-hyung, the former commander of the Defense Counterintelligence Command, instructed troops to bring computer forensic tools, suggesting they might be needed just in case.
Computer forensics is a technology used to identify and preserve evidence from computer devices, including servers. Consequently, the troops brought these tools to examine the NEC’s server in search of evidence to support the allegations of a rigged election. Kim, a former defense minister, said troops were dispatched to the NEC to investigate evidence that could support the allegations.
However, he did not specify which election he was referring to. In an SBS interview, Shin Yong-han, a distinguished professor at Seowon University who previously worked for Yoon's campaign during the 2022 presidential election, said the president and Kim would have wanted to determine if the NEC’s server had been breached and whether the election results were compromised as a result. He shared a report dated Dec.
29, 2021, titled “Plans to Prevent Election Fraud,” which he claimed was presented to Yoon when he was the PPP’s presidential candidate. It addressed allegations that the 2020 election results were compromised, but there were no follow-up measures to prove whether those allegations were true or not. The report suggested that if election fraud had occurred, two possible explanations could be hacking or manipulation of the algorithm.
It also recommended securing the NEC’s server, which contained election-related materials, and conducting computer forensics to determine whether the allegations were true. Inside the Yoon camp, Shin said there was a team of experts overseeing election integrity. Roh Tae-ak, a Supreme Court justice and chairman of the National Election Commission (NEC), speaks during a news conference held on Dec.
6 at the NEC headquarters in Gwacheon City, Gyeonggi Province. Supreme Court justices hold leadership positions at the NEC, making it difficult for investigators to probe elections, as judges rarely approve arrest or search warrants for the watchdog. Yonhap Yoon publicly acknowledged that he was suspicious of the 2020 Nation Assembly election results.
When asked to answer his position on the rigged election allegations during a TV debate held in September 2021, Yoon, then a candidate running in the PPP’s primary to elect its presidential candidate, said he had thought the results of the 2020 elections were statistically unusual. Since Yoon took office in May 2022, there has been meaningful progress in addressing concerns about the NEC’s cybersecurity. As suspicions about the election results continued, the NIS, in collaboration with the NEC and the Korea Internet and Security Agency (KISA), conducted a joint cybersecurity checkup of the election watchdog’s network from July to September 2023.
The NIS revealed the findings of its weekslong probe at a news conference on Oct. 10. In a mock hacking test, the intelligence agency revealed that the election watchdog’s network and server were vulnerable to hacking.
White hat hackers, who are ethical hackers testing systems for vulnerabilities, were able to gain access and compromise the server containing voter rolls. “The hackers successfully breached the server containing voter rolls and were able to classify those who didn’t participate in voting into those who cast their ballots. Hackers were also able to put ghost voters on the eligible voters list,” the NIS said in a press release, adding that those hackers employed the same techniques that international hacking groups utilize.
The worst part was that hackers were able to change the election results, according to the intelligence agency. In a press release, the NEC sought to downplay the NIS’ findings. It acknowledged that its election system might be vulnerable to hacking, as the NIS said but emphasized that this did not necessarily imply that election fraud had occurred.
A question remained unanswered: Despite being president for two and a half years, Yoon took no action to address the allegations. Why did he waste the first half of his presidency without doing anything if he was so suspicious about the election results? Troops dispatched to the National Assembly on Dec. 3 are surrounded by people, as citizens poured into the streets to protest against President Yoon Suk Yeol's short-lived declaration of martial law.
Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul Park Joo-hyun, an attorney and activist who has fought for election integrity for years, shared a story that can partly answer the question. Park said he worked with an unnamed former government official to produce a memo detailing the election fraud allegations and possible solutions, which was handed over to the president. “I heard that President Yoon read our memo and tried to fix the problems but the NEC turned a deaf ear to the requests,” the lawyer said on his YouTube channel.
Park claimed that the NEC is off-limits to investigators primarily due to its status as a Constitutional institution. “A Supreme Court justice oversees the NEC as chairperson. Even when law enforcement officials seek a search warrant, the court rarely approves it.
This happens,” he said. In a democratic nation, analysts argue that both the ends and the means must be appropriate. Asking for anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue, a political scientist said Yoon crossed the line by declaring martial law.
“President Yoon appeared to have concluded that declaring martial law was the only way he could rely on, to further investigate the NEC,” he said. “But declaring martial law cannot be justified. He has gone too far.
” Another political scientist acknowledged that there were numerous allegations about the 2020 National Assembly elections, and he believed that some of them were based on reasonable doubt. “My question is why it had to be now?” he said, asking not to be named..
