Updates on Presidential Scandal

[justkyhdding.livejournal.com]

Plot Thickens in Crony Scandal https://t.co/v0AwIuNZYq

— The Chosun Ilbo (@EnglishChosun) October 31, 2016

• sources are claiming that Choi Soon-sil's older sister Choi Soon-deuk is the real brains behind the operation, and that Soon-sil was her crony


• Soon-deuk and Park Geun-hye went to high school together


• When Park was attacked in 2007, she recuperated at Soon-doek's house and Soon-deok bragged about it


• Allegedly also bragged about being bribed with "bags of cash" by politicians seeking higher office


• Has also apparently passed her secrets on to her daughter


• Currently in hiding in Gangnam

.

Thousands march in Seoul as pressure intensifies for South Korean President Park Geun-hye to resign https://t.co/FIBftsyAGp pic.twitter.com/hBDpmH8pk1

— ABC News (@abcnews) October 31, 2016

More than 10,000 people have filled the streets of central Seoul to protest against President Park Geun-hye, her administration and a build-up of corruption scandals that have deepened public distrust in Government.

Ms Park's tenure has been turbulent — since taking office in 2013, a number of her appointed aides have been embroiled in corruption scandals.

Under her watch, more than 300 died in the Sewol ferry disaster due to negligence in public safety.

The economy remains in limbo while unemployment rates continue to rise.

Amid this, there has also been a marked deterioration of rights, including freedom of speech, with more crackdowns on protests critical of the Government — even resulting in a blacklist of political and civilian opponents.

But the tipping point that led to the mass candlelight vigil Saturday (local time), was the emergence of a woman named Choi Soon-sil.

"I have to express my anger and I couldn't just sit at home and do nothing," said Lee Young-ha, a young college student who came to the protest with her friends.

"I think everyone, myself included, is shocked that our president is not leading the country but being controlled by someone else who is pulling all the strings."
Ms Choi's personal relationship with Ms Park has long been known, dating back around 40 years.

However, she came under the spotlight following a string of political graft allegations among Ms Park's top aides.

Rumours spread that Ms Choi had been secretly advising Ms Park on all matters, from her fashion choices to policies on North Korea, despite not have any official position in the Government.

One of South Korea's local media outlets, JTBC, reported it had discovered a tablet PC left behind by Ms Choi, which contained nearly 200 confidential state documents, including 44 of the president's speeches.

Under growing speculation that Ms Choi was leading the country behind the scenes, Ms Park apologised earlier this week over the controversy and acknowledged she sought Ms Choi's counsel and shared certain internal documents with her in the process.

Since then, calls for the president's resignation have only intensified nationwide, with the latest poll on Friday showing her approval ratings dropping to an all-time low of 14 per cent.

"This is a failed democracy," said Jeong Jin-wook, who came out to protest with his wife and four-year-old son.

"We democratically voted in Park Geun-hye but she's not our president.

"As a father, I'm worried about my son's future so I came out to try to put the country back in the right direction."
Ms Choi is accused of embezzling millions, not only of public money, but also using her influence as a presidential confidant for private donations.

She is also suspected of using her clout to get her daughter preferential treatment at one of South Korea's top universities.

This is why many suggest Saturday's rally attracted such a large crowd, because Ms Choi's alleged acts highlight ongoing injustices.

Police estimate there were between 9,000-12,000 protesters but civic groups put the figure higher, to upwards of 30,000.

Although chants for the president to resign were rampant, many in the crowd also expressed concerns that without a thorough, transparent investigation, they would not be able to root out the problems facing the nation and ensure they will never happen again.

Analysts suggest that if Ms Park resigned or was impeached, there would be a leadership vacuum, which could ultimately hurt the country — especially because it would be more beneficial for the opposition to let Ms Park ride out the rest of her presidency as a humiliated, lame duck leader in order to gain the upper hand in next year's election.

In an attempt to clean up the situation, Ms Park ordered 10 of her senior secretaries to resign over the scandal.

Ms Choi, meanwhile, returned to South Korea on Sunday, following her pledge to cooperate with the prosecution's investigation.

"The investigation has been biased so far and protected the president," a protester said over loudspeaker.
"But isn't it more important to gain the public's trust?"


sources: @EnglishChosun | @abcnews | abc.net.au

Comments

[boxclocks.livejournal.com]

Are they not able to move elections forward and appoint a new leader sooner? I guess if the current president right now doesn't admit to any wrongdoings, they can't really force it...which is super messed up as it would essentially be 1 person's will overruling the will of millions...Really, how bull-headed can a person be?

You would expect this kind of corruption from a lesser developed country (I myself being from one) but then again, I'm not all that familiar with South Korean politics.

[mjspice.livejournal.com]

There should be standards for an impeachment. That's what they did for Bill Clinton. :/

[justkyhdding.livejournal.com]

Speculation is that impeachment won't happen because the election is a year away and it's more advantageous for the opposition to keep Park Geun-hye and maintain the public ire against her and her party.

[mjspice.livejournal.com]

Ugh smfh

[premonitioner.livejournal.com]

Korea is only considered a developed country because it had an incredibly fast economic revolution, but that occurred under multiple dictatorships and during the high point of the cold war it's also only been 30 years since they achieved 'democracy' (I think many argue that Korea has never really been a democracy and can never be whilst north Korea remains belligerent), and that's still a relatively short period of time for a country to overcome the problems of corruption. especially in a culture where it's not what you know but who you know is considered more important.

also there needs to be enough time for new candidates to campaign and I feel like by the time an early election was organised, it would only be a few months earlier than the ones they currently have scheduled.

[boxclocks.livejournal.com]

For someone who follows so much Kpop,etc, I am woefully ignorant on anything else to do with the country. The fact that they're such a young democratic nation is really eye-opening.

also there needs to be enough time for new candidates to campaign and I feel like by the time an early election was organised, it would only be a few months earlier than the ones they currently have scheduled.

Yeah, a few months doesn't really seem like a lot of time in this situation. What would be the consequences of letting her stay on as the president?

[premonitioner.livejournal.com]

(it's fairly common amongst kpop fans but don't feel bad - most of what I've learned I was taught at university from amazing experts in Korean history, politics and culture. if you want a basic background to Korean history, I would suggest Bruce Cummings. Unfortunate name but hes got a writing style that makes the chore of reading history books less chore-like and more interesting)

As for the rest of her presidency, she's already been a lame duck president for about a year now, more so since her party lost the majority in government. I think that if she provided a sufficient apology (tho Korea is an honour culture and its very difficult to provide an adequate apology for something like this) she could spend the rest of her presidency lying low with minimal unrest? That's if she did everything she could to satisfy the Korean people, which she doesn't seem to be doing.

In my view, if she doesn't make a really big gesture at least once to appease the public, there's a chance that she could end up like her parents :/ and that's absolute worst case scenario but any scenario where she is removed from office early would cause mayhem, as the Korean government is a mess in general, with people never holding high level positions for a long period of time (look up how many prime ministers Parks administration has gone through already) and impeachment rarely goes well in a country that's so rife with corruption (see other users comments about Brasil)

[helcaxe.livejournal.com]

This is a bit random but do you know any good books on Korean history, both contemporary but also Joseon dynasty etc.? I've heard of Bruce Cummings but at the same time I would prefer to read Korean authors, although I'm guessing the reason I haven't found many is because they don't get translated that often.

[premonitioner.livejournal.com]

Korean authors are a lot harder to find in English, you're right. And honestly, I haven't taken a Korean history class since 2012, because I focused on Korean international relations, nationalism and feminism (and then a combination of all three by writing my dissertation on the Comfort Women) after that. So any Korean authors who write/have been translated into English that I remember were writing about very specific things (I can definitely recommend Chunghee Sarah Soh, her work about the Comfort Women is great)

I have some, albeit limited, access to a Jstor account through my work, so if you're super duper keen, I could try to download some articles for you but I've just had a quick glance and most of the ones I currently have access to are written by non-Koreans.

A tip I can give you is always look at Google Books when searching. Kim Jinwung's book seems to be a good start if you want a broad overview of Korean history and it was written relatively recently (although Korea has changed A LOT in the past 6 years). HOWEVER I will also have to warn you about reading history books by Korean authors - you can occasionally get a bit too much nationalism, so there are pros and cons to native historians. Like with all pieces of academic work, you gotta be aware of potential author bias. edit: also, books like these are super expensive. Sorry :(

[helcaxe.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much!! I do have a very limited general idea of Korean history from the time I lived there, so although I'm super interested in Korean feminism I feel like I should start for something more general first? But idk, maybe not really.

You're absolutely right about author bias, that's why I'm asking around so much. I was wary of reading American scholars especially when it comes to Korean war but then again Korean authors will be as biased if not more so I guess I'll go for the easiest to find (cheapest hopefully).

Anyway thanks again, I'm checking everything now!

[premonitioner.livejournal.com]

Another place to look is university libraries. I don't know if there are any universities near you that have a decent East Asian studies department, but if there are, it's worth seeing if they allow non-student borrowers. Also, it would be cheaper.

[rachelrainna.livejournal.com]

ia w what was said above regarding sk's political scene.

just a note- corruption is rampant everywhere, not only in developing countries. it may not be so obvious since developing countries such as colombia or the philippines have a larger gap between the rich and the poor, and have always been shown in the media via poverty porn, etc. in the states, you have hillary clinton whose nomination was won even before the primaries, and you have donald trump who is morally corrupt. its elsewhere in the world like turkey and china and etc etc. idk sry tldr i just got really bummed out that we "expect" it from certain countries.

[boxclocks.livejournal.com]

I'm aware corruption isn't unique to developing countries and I think it'd be fair to say it's much much easier to have actions of politicians/people in power go unanswered and unpunished in those countries. I just always thought developed countries would have more independent regulators/watchdogs to prevent these kinds of things from happening. Even though we all kind of know it to be true, it is disheartening to so blatantly be shown that the average citizen doesn't have much say in who has control over their lives.

[dorawa.livejournal.com]

Oh, I thought CSS was "too sick and weak" to come back to Korea lolol these people would probably die if they told the truth.

#Protesters (https://twitter.com/hashtag/Protesters?src=hash) occupy #Gwanghwamun (https://twitter.com/hashtag/Gwanghwamun?src=hash) plaza, say #democracy (https://twitter.com/hashtag/democracy?src=hash) has given way to #theocracy (https://twitter.com/hashtag/theocracy?src=hash). #ParkGeunHye (https://twitter.com/hashtag/ParkGeunHye?src=hash) #박근혜 (https://twitter.com/hashtag/%EB%B0%95%EA%B7%BC%ED%98%9C?src=hash) #광화문 (https://twitter.com/hashtag/%EA%B4%91%ED%99%94%EB%AC%B8?src=hash) pic.twitter.com/PaBo0Cq4t4 (https://t.co/PaBo0Cq4t4)

— Jihyoung Son(孫知亨) (@consnow) October 29, 2016 (https://twitter.com/consnow/status/792338156066516992)

Video of the protest a couple days ago.

I signed a paper today calling for her resignment! The best I can do as a foreigner. :/


Edit: The Korean media is calling this "Choi Sun Shil Gate" but people are kind of annoyed w/ that online because they would rather focus on PGH's faults and call it "Park Geun Hye Gate"

[justkyhdding.livejournal.com]

And now it turns out that Choi Sun-sil may herself be the fall woman for her sister...

Since PGH is the president it makes sense that she be held accountable for her actions. But it really seems like she was brainwashed by the Chois, in which case it's really the fault of the entire system for allowing such a person to be elected in ther first place, especially since diplomats and officials have known about her and the Chois years before she ran for president.

tbh PGH and Choi whoever will still be the wrong people to focus on, because at the end of the day it's the system that's the real problem

[redgreendress.livejournal.com]

This scandal has been blowing my mind. I laughed at the Guardian's article calling Choi Soon Sil a "Rasputin-like figure" but seriously, this is bad on so many levels. Impeachment seems completely justified at this point, but take it from a Brazilian person who's just had a president impeached on circumstances much less clear-cut than this, the chaos and the undermining of government structure, the economic fallout...it gets much worse before it gets better. 2016 has been such a shit year

[hellicoptajuuce.livejournal.com]

What kinda drama like story. Honestly if u tried and told me this was true before it was revealed i wouldnt believe you

[iskerplunk.livejournal.com]

this is so insane tbh. like i know that everyone loves a good conspiracy theory but seeing this unravel is just surreal. the plot just becomes more and more complicated...

[broadcities.livejournal.com]

this situation is bizarre, i hope the president and the chois will be held accountable

[girlknees.livejournal.com]

I would love to see an article with more quotes/interviews with citizens because this is really shaking people up. Like my Korean language professor is usually the most happy go lucky guy in the world, but this morning he was just so upset and stopped mid-lecture to explain why this case is so important. Especially because we go to Ewha, I think the faculty is really shaken by the extent of Choi's grip on the President. First it seemed like she had just gotten her daughter special admission, and now the whole thing is unraveling....

[headswillroll88.livejournal.com]

You go to Ewha? Where are you from and what is it like?

[girlknees.livejournal.com]

I do! I'm from Norway, and I'm currently enrolled as a graduate student at the school of communication and media. My usual classes are with other graduate school students (mostly Korean, but also from some other Asian countries) but my Korean language classes are mixed with undergraduate exchange students. The graduate school system at Ewha doesn't require that you speak Korean; as long as you can prove that you understand academic-level English, you are told you can complete your degree in English. However, in my department I'm the only non-Korean speaking student (I'm learning, but I'm hardly at an academic level) so they don't offer any classes in English despite they fact that I am, according to the admission guidelines, supposed to be able to pursue my degree in English. In reality this just means I can write my thesis and end of term papers in English. I love Ewha as a school, in terms of students, in terms of campus, etc. Our library and other facilities is pretty awesome, imo. But as a foreign student, they definitely promise you a lot more than what they can deliver. For undergraduate students, they do offer more classes in English, but for graduate school, unless you're in the International Studies department, it's slim picking for classes. I am enjoying my studies, but as my classes are taught in Korean I'm not getting nearly half as much out of it as I would if they were taught in Korean. Purely based on academic and my department, i would have rather they had rejected my application on the basis that i don't speak academic Korean rather than accepting me under the pretense of it being okay that I don't speak academic Korean.

[girlknees.livejournal.com]

Haha I don't know if that answers your question at all... if you have any specific questions feel free to ask!

I will say this again though, my fellow students, both undergrad and grad school, are absolutely amazing women. You will meet great people here.

[headswillroll88.livejournal.com]

You answered wonderfully, I was curious because I almost had a chance to go with my grad program too.

What have your classmates/faculty been saying about the current situation?

[girlknees.livejournal.com]

we're technically still in the middle of midterms (everyone should be finishing up this week) so the class i have today is the first one where we might actually mention it, as we has tests the entire week when the scandal erupted. i'll come back and comment if i hear anything interesting!

[yellowesque.livejournal.com]

i'm also a graduate student at ewha (in the graduate school of international studies) and my professors have been talking about it quite a bit too. it's strange to think that part of the scandal originated at our university - when all of the protests were taking place on campus over the summer i would've never thought it would lead to/be connected to a presidential scandal.

[girlknees.livejournal.com]

oh, are you at gsis? i almost switched from my department to gsis last semester because my department head flat out told me they wouldn't be offering any classes in English in the future... but while i could transfer my credits to gsis, they said i had to complete four semesters in their department (so, technically adding another 6 months to my degree) ><
i'm taking one gsis class this semester though, with professor Willoughby? i'm really enjoying it!

and yeah, i can't believe this all technically unravelled because of the bongwan sit in. i'm so proud of the undergrad students for standing their ground and pulling that off. the government is doing a two-week on site probe at Ewha now, i think they set up a temporary office in the ECC? i wonder what else might come out...

[yellowesque.livejournal.com]

yup i'm an IR major! they are pretty strict about residency requirements which is annoying, i'm in my 3rd semester and have all my credits but have to stay and take a class next semester to graduate anyway. and i've never taken a class with dr. willoughby but i've heard she's nice, but her classes are a lot of work! lol i really like gsis for the most part though, we have great professors.

[premonitioner.livejournal.com]

almost all of the media companies in South Korea are government owned/controlled.

[cafe-miel.livejournal.com]

Agreed, the ties aren't hidden at all.
The government facilitates a lot for media companies but on top of that they probably have deeper connections hence the way scandals strategically released to cover things.

For other countries, the government maintains a seemingly hands off strategy (but we all know the truth).

[premonitioner.livejournal.com]

not the party, the governmental bodies in general. opposition parties may have the sway over a few small name newspapers but in general, the governmental controls what is talked about in the media.

its different from the BBC in that the UK has independent regulators that can investigate and punish the BBC, and the UK has access to mainstream non-governmental channels. Korea has very few media companies that aren't under the thumb of the government and they tend to not have a wide audience or last very long.

[adenar.livejournal.com]

This is completely beyond belief and I feel so awful for the citizens of South Korea.

[annielumiere.livejournal.com]

this is so crazy.

TY OP for updating! no paper or media has talked about it in my country and i still can't understand why

[sevenminusseven.livejournal.com]

Does anyone else think this whole thing has to do with at least 2 mentally ill persons? And since Korea seems to be in the dark ages on mental health issues I can't help but think there isn't much awareness about what mental illness looks like.

[modestgoddess79.livejournal.com]

I definitely considered that the president might be mentally ill. At minimal she is in an abusive relationship with Choi. Having her every action conrtolled to the point that she is doing things detrimental to herself just shows how severely the president has been brainwashed. Choi and associates seem to be very deliberate in their control and manipulation of her to maximize their own benefit.

[premonitioner.livejournal.com]

oh absolutely. I have no doubt that this stemmed from her parents death, particularly with the way they died, and Korea not believing that mental illness or trauma exists. On top of one of the reasons for her father being assassinated was his instability, she could possibly have a predisposition for something similar.

[girlknees.livejournal.com]

i agree - PGH likely suffered immense emotional trauma, especially over her mother's death, and her relationship with the Chois seem more like a kind of Stockholm syndrom, grown attached to her abusers kind of relationship (not that I have any background in psychology, but you know)

[lechuza-yoya.livejournal.com]

im very proud of korean citizen, the they are doing all of this, and way better things come their way.

[caipirinhas.livejournal.com]

I still can't believe this is real. I hope all the protesters are staying safe. And I cannot believe the President isn't just resigning. She's going to make the people impeach her >.>

[aurellee.livejournal.com]

This is a legit Kdrama. All the twists and turns.

And honestly, I kind of believe the theory regarding Sewol now...

Still could not believe this whole thing is real. The fact that she even admit to have ties to Choi Soon-sil... I guess it makes sense she threw out Choi Soon-Sil's name if the real mastermind is Choi Soon-Deuk.

[justkyhdding.livejournal.com]

Sorry if I misunderstood but I think Choi Soon-deuk has been the smart one, maintaining just enough distance by having her sister as the middlewoman to leargely escape scrutiny, If CDS had been 'advising' PGH directly, she would have been the one named (or one of the ones)

[aurellee.livejournal.com]

That's what my post meant. That CSD would be the one to tell PGH to openly admit to having ties to CSS so CSS could be the fall woman because CSS has a large records with PGH that could easily be traceable. Particularly more when she was the one who left her Galaxy Tab in an office, unlocked, without password when she left the country iirc. ( What I read from askakorean summary).

Now that new information is out about CDS, then this makes much more sense, because based on the summary, CSS has got to be the most kdrama rich mother-in-law like. Her arrogant and her tackiness, it's not someone you'd think would be the mastermind in putting somebody up to the level of a President.