President Yoon Suk Yeol avoided impeachment Saturday, as his conservative ruling party staged a united boycott against the opposition-led parliamentary vote, defying public demands to hold him responsible for last week’s surprise declaration of martial law.

Records show that Yoon, his Cabinet, and several members of his party have apparently flip-flopped their positions on martial law -- at least in the public address -- from before the fateful night of Dec. 3.

Accusations of the president plotting martial law has circulated in the political circles for months, which the presidential office had adamantly denied. After some lawmakers of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea raised such suspicion, the presidential office addressed the public late August to decry it as a conspiracy theory.

"Stop hiding behind the conspiracy theories and instigating (the public) with the malicious rumors, and give us proof (on the martial law plots)," presidential spokesperson Jeong Hye-jeon said on Aug. 26, pledging legal action against those who make such accusations.

Jeong and other members of the president's public relations team has yet to release a public statement concerning this specific matter.

Kim Yong-hyun, former defense minister who recommended martial law to Yoon, explicitly said in September then as a minister-nominee that he will do no such thing.

"If we were to declare martial law in Korea right now, who among the people would accept it? Would the military follow (the order)? Frankly, I wouldn't," he said at the parliamentary hearing on his appointment.

Emergency martial law declared on the night of Dec. 3 was rescinded just six hours later after the National Assembly vote to nullify it. But, the parliament reveals its deep divide along party lines, failing to decide on the next steps regarding Yoon’s fate.

While six opposition parties united to impeach Yoon, ruling party lamwakers, except just three -- Reps. Ahn Cheol-soo, Kim Sang-wook, and Kim Yea-ji -- participated in the impeachment vote. Their boycott blocked the 200-vote quorum needed for its passage.

Rep. Cho Bae-sook of the People Power Party, formerly a member of the liberal bloc until 2012, had publicly spoken against plans for a martial law set up by Yoon's predecessor Park Geun-hye. It was found in 2018 that Park, facing public pressure for her suspicions of her corruption, had planned to declare martial law in 2017 as a last-ditch effort to stay in power.

Cho said in July of 2018 that she was "shocked and infuriated" by the plans to have the military point guns at the civic protesters. She went on to say that those responsible for devising such plans should be held responsible, six years before she refused to vote in the impeachment motion for Yoon for declaring martial law.