5% approval

November 28, 2016 8:09 PM

South Koreans urge resignation of Park Geun-hye (Al Jazeera)
If verified, this is the largest protest in South Korean history.

S Korea sees largest protests against President Park Geun-hye (BBC)
Ms Park is accused of allowing her friend, Choi Soon-sil, to manipulate power from behind the scenes. South Korea's constitution does not allow a sitting president to be prosecuted, and Ms Park has 15 months left in her term.

South Koreans Protest, Demand President Step Down Amid Scandal (NBC)
The protests, now in their fifth week, have remained peaceful and marked by huge candle-lit rallies where activists and rock bands have entertained a diverse crowd of students, office workers, and young families.

South Korean President too busy to meet criminal investigators (Deutsche Welle)
Lawyer Yoo Yeong-ha said Park is too busy handling state affairs and preparing a legal defense against the mounting accusations and therefore had little time to cooperate with prosecutors, who gave the president a Tuesday deadline to respond. "It is regrettable that the president cannot cooperate with face-to-face questioning the prosecutors have asked for by November 29."

Park willing to promptly appoint independent counsel: spokesman (Yonhap)
The National Assembly passed a bill on a special investigation of Park on Nov. 17. Prosecutors named the president as an accomplice in the scandal centering on her confidante Choi Soon-sil, accused of meddling in state affairs and pressuring businesses to donate to nonprofit organizations she controlled.

The friendship behind S Korea's presidential crisis (BBC)
Only the two women involved in this unprecedented political storm know the true dynamic of their relationship. And President Park and her confidante Choi Soon-sil are not telling.

The Saga of Park Geun-hye (NYT)
The accounts of Park Geun-hye’s rise and fall have drawn on “Game of Thrones,” Rasputin, classical Greek tragedy and a variety of other allusions to capture the extraordinary drama now being played out in South Korea.

Who is Park Geun-hye? (WSJ Video)

Park Geun-hye's Bad Chois: Deciphering the Scandal in South Korea (Foreign Affairs) requires free registration
President Park Geun-hye of South Korea is in the biggest fight of her political life. She is in the midst of a political scandal involving allegations of corruption and that her close personal friend and “shaman,” Choi Soon-sil, was a shadowy, Rasputin-like figure who generally functioned as the president’s puppetmaster. Park is believed to have shared classified government documents with Choi, who has no security clearance. Choi also, allegedly, used her connections and influence to shape state policy, pocket millions in corporate donations, and rig her daughter’s admission to Seoul’s prestigious Ewha Women’s University.

Forbes profile

Also on Al Jazeera, Potential conflict on the Korean peninsula

posted by wonton endangerment (23 comments total)

Superb FPP, crazy situation. Thanks!
posted by spitbull at 8:26 PM on November 28, 2016

5% actually seems a little suspicious.
posted by um at 9:12 PM on November 28, 2016

From last month on the blue. That was the first I'd heard of this amazing story.
posted by mark k at 9:24 PM on November 28, 2016 [8 favorites]

I've been following this on and off. Democracy seems to be in a bad way everywhere right now. I was curious about the specifics of the cult, but can't really find anything through searching. It only comes up recently, and in relation to this present scandal.
posted by codacorolla at 9:45 PM on November 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

She just gave a televised speech and said she won't be resigning, but that she'll defer to the will of the National Assembly as to how long her term will be. They have an impeachment vote pending, with a majority opposition government, so...
posted by invitapriore at 10:01 PM on November 28, 2016 [5 favorites]

Park allows parliament to decide her fate (Al Jazeera)
posted by wonton endangerment at 10:15 PM on November 28, 2016

5% actually seems a little suspicious.

Doesn't surprise me, it's pretty close to the Lizardman's Constant.
posted by dragoon at 11:42 PM on November 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

I would be really interested to hear from any Korean-based mefites about this. Korean colleagues have mentioned and my own experiences with multinationals working in Korea has given me an impression that corruption in general is (surprisingly?) widespread in Korea, especially in regards to awarding of contracts and kickbacks etc.

I can't help wondering if - though the corruption is breathtaking, to be sure - there is a gendered element to the reaction to Park. Truly awful chauvinism is widespread in Korea, so I suppose the a better question is: how is reaction to Park gendered?
posted by smoke at 12:51 AM on November 29, 2016 [1 favorite]

Smoke, if you haven't read the post linked to by mark k above - it specifically addresses why this would generate a huge scandal when other corruption doesn't
posted by timdiggerm at 2:37 AM on November 29, 2016 [4 favorites]

I hadn't seen the previously that timdiggerm is mentioning, but HOLY GOD it's required reading to understand all this mess. What the great big fuck? this is absolutely bonkers. I had had content optimism for Park's success. But. No one could have guessed this. It's like that episode of catfish.
posted by FirstMateKate at 6:33 AM on November 29, 2016

S. Korean leader offers conditional resignation amid scandal
posted by bukvich at 6:49 AM on November 29, 2016 [2 favorites]

I can't help wondering if - though the corruption is breathtaking, to be sure - there is a gendered element to the reaction to Park. Truly awful chauvinism is widespread in Korea, so I suppose the a better question is: how is reaction to Park gendered?
smoke

Gender Colors Outrage Over Scandal Involving South Korea’s President (NYT)
posted by Sangermaine at 8:07 AM on November 29, 2016 [2 favorites]

How have the protests stayed so peaceful for so long? Where are the riots, or the police overstepping their authority? Is that not being covered, or does Korean society just not do that?
posted by WizardOfDocs at 11:05 AM on November 29, 2016

Can we trade her for Trump?
posted by Liquidwolf at 11:14 AM on November 29, 2016

Hi Tim, I did read that previous link when it was posted, but it didn't really touch in the gender aspects much. The NYT link is very interesting, thanks for sharing it, sangermaine.
posted by smoke at 12:12 PM on November 29, 2016 [1 favorite]

Can we trade her for Trump?

Well, I dunno. I asked my (immigrant) parents if they were planning on moving back to South Korea now that we're facing at least four years with an orange bridge troll as POTUS. My mom's response was that South Korea was facing its own fucked up scandal so their asses would be staying in the US.
posted by imnotasquirrel at 12:38 PM on November 29, 2016

...Not that I think we're in any position to look down on South Korea. But it's really a pick your poison scenario at this point, isn't it? Then again, at least Park is finished politically.
posted by imnotasquirrel at 12:48 PM on November 29, 2016

A lot of the people on the streets at the moment would have to be fifty-somethings who would have had to have had first-hand experience of the struggle in the 80's to establish democratic rule in South Korea. They haven't forgotten the struggle, and they haven't forgotten the importance of democracy, and how they achieved a democratic civil society by demonstrating on the streets.
posted by My Dad at 2:20 PM on November 29, 2016 [3 favorites]

People made fun of Gary Johnson when he couldn't name a world leader he admired, but it has really gotten hard in the last few years. Park, Abe, Xi, Duterte, Turnbull, Najib? it's a rogues gallery.
posted by Bee'sWing at 2:32 PM on November 29, 2016

What makes Shinzo Abe a rogue? I understand he is not palatable to many on the center-left, but Abe is literally nothing like Xi... or any of the other leaders you have listed.
posted by My Dad at 3:00 PM on November 29, 2016 [1 favorite]

In terms of policy, there is not much difference between Justin Trudeau and Shinzo Abe. They only really differ in their branding.
posted by My Dad at 3:14 PM on November 29, 2016

Mod note: Quick reminder: It's been discussed many times in Metatalk how frustrating people find it when there's a post about one country or political figure, but the conversation keeps being turned to discuss other countries instead, so while pertinent references are fine let's try to keep this more directed on the topic of Park and South Korea. Thanks.
posted by taz (staff) at 5:55 AM on November 30, 2016 [2 favorites]

@josungkim is also an a good/helpful journalist to follow on Twitter, often translating Korean-language headlines.

I'm in Seoul at the moment and was in the most recent protest, and will probably attend tonight's. Pretty remarkable seeing governments and businesses coordinating services -- opening bathrooms to the public, telecoms installing temporary cell towers to support increased demand, etc.

I also understand that it's not so simple as it appears - currently the media actively supports the protest as well as political support. It's fashionable and politically strategic to advocate for things in the name of "the people" (국민). The protests are well organized by a coalition of organizations, with infrastructure and loudspeakers, people selling candles and food (often with impeachment-themed food names) -- yet it also feels very grassroots, with entire families coming out - very common to see friends or families or grandparents and grandchildren at the protests.

As someone normally based in NYC, it feels a far cry from public or media responses to Occupy/Black Lives Matter/Anti-Trump protests. I'm amazed by watching the Korean news - yesterday I watched the evening news discuss an infographic protest/march routes and the legal/logistical reasons of maintaining distance from the presidential grounds (Blue House). The other day I watched a television program use three different ways of measuring the crowd number to dispute an official police count - they took samples of crowd density and attempted to calculate total crowd size; they deployed 60 people with backpack cellphone stingrays to count the number of cellphones in the crowd; they took a drone photo of a candlelight march and used astronomy software designed for counting stars to calculate another density measure. All in all they determined that the estimate of 1.7M people was a few times the police estimate.

I immediately had flashbacks to numerous protests in NYC where tens of thousands of people would come out, yet the New York Times and other media organizations would say "thousands of protestors", relying simply on official police reports. It's refreshing to be immersed in Korea's media culture -- while it's certainly not perfect and can be problematic in many ways, there's a culture of heated news and intellectual debate that makes the US media culture of BREAKING NEWS TRUMP JUST TWEETED seem quite naive in comparison.
posted by suedehead at 8:59 PM on December 9, 2016 [2 favorites]