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Seoul braces for huge anti-Park rally
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Puppet ruler: A South Korean college student holds a placard depicting South Korea's President Park Geun-hye (right bottom) as a marionette and Choi Soon-sil, who is at the center of a political scandal, as a puppeteer calling for Park to step down on the street in Seoul on Thursday. (AP/Ahn Young-joon)
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ens of thousands of South Koreans are expected to march in Seoul on Saturday to demand President Park Geun-hye's resignation after she apologized for allowing her longtime friend to meddle in government affairs.
Police expect around 40,000 people while organizers of the rally say as many as 100,000 will turn out Saturday.
Dozens of police buses are parked in streets around City Hall and also a square in front of an old palace gate, which the police plan to close off to prevent protesters from marching toward the Blue House, the presidential office and residence.
In Friday's televised apology, Park vowed to accept a direct investigation into her actions, but the opposition, sensing weakness, immediately threatened to push for her ouster.
She is Choi Soon-sil, the daughter of a cult leader and a longtime friend to President Park Geun-hye. And so far, about the only thing that South Korea knows for sure is that Choi edited some of the president's speeches.
But as the political furor has grown, the rumors — widely reported here, widely believed and repeated regularly by the political opposition — have grown as well, permeating almost every corner of South Korean society.
By Friday, Choi had been accused of everything from swaying the careers of pop singers to helping craft North Korea policy to influencing Seoul's multi-billion-dollar purchase of American F-35 fighter jets. With rumors flying, a string of celebrities, from the rapper PSY to a former Miss Korea, have issued statements denying links to Choi's family or distancing themselves from the scandal.
Such allegations may seem ridiculous, but the gladitorial combat of South Korean politics — and the country's long traditions of official corruption and influence-peddling — have bred a deep public cynicism. This is a country, after all, where one former president was ordered to repay more than $200 million he had taken in bribes, and another killed himself in 2009 amid a bribery investigation by throwing himself off a cliff.
"We virtually had two presidents handling state affairs," Choo Miae, a leader of the Minjoo Party, the largest party in the opposition, said last week after allegations began to spill out. "Park Geun-hye was the president during the day, and Choi Soon-sil was the president at night."
