S. Korea’s Park silent after court orders removal
SEOUL, South Korea — A day after a court removed her from power over a corruption scandal, ousted South Korean President Park Geunhye maintained her silence Saturday as her opponents and supporters rallied in the capital’s streets.
Park has been unseen and unheard from since the Constitutional Court’s ruling Friday, which ended a power struggle that had consumed the nation for months. Park, whose fate was left in the court’s hands after her parliamentary impeachment in December, has yet to vacate the presidential Blue House, with her aides saying they need more time to prepare for her return to her private home in Seoul.
“It’s not good that she’s still in the Blue House,” said Lee Ha-na, a 24-year-old Web designer. “I want her dragged out, because that’s what right.”
Shin Tae-soo, a 37-yearold law school graduate, went further, carrying a sign that said: “Unemployed civilian Park Geun-hye is illegally occupying the Blue House. Park Geun-hye must immediately move out. The place she belongs is prison.”
Carrying flags and candles and cheering jubilantly, tens of thousands of people occupied a boulevard in downtown Seoul to celebrate Park’s ouster. Meanwhile, in a nearby grass square, a crowd of Park’s supporters waved national flags near a stage where organizers, wearing red caps and military uniforms, vowed to resist what they called a “political assassination.”
Police had braced for violence between the two crowds after three people died and dozens were injured in clashes between police and Park’s supporters after the ruling on Friday. Nearly 20,000 police officers were deployed Saturday to monitor the protesters, who were also separated by tight perimeters created by hundreds of police buses.
The anti-Park protesters shouted “The candles have won!” and “Arrest Park Geunhye!” as they began marching toward the Blue House. The protesters, who held candles during their evening demonstrations in recent months, loosely call themselves the Candle Force.
The court’s decision capped a steep fall for the country’s first female leader. Park rode a wave of lingering conservative nostalgia for her deceased leader father to victory in 2012, only to see her presidency crumble as millions of protesters filled the nation’s streets.
Analysts saw defiance in her silence, saying Park may have been hoping to use the growing anger of her followers to rebuild support.
“By being quiet, she’s making it loud and clear that she won’t accept the court’s ruling,” said Yul Shin, a professor at Seoul’s Myongji University. “Nobody knows when she will leave the Blue House, but maybe she wanted to see how large the crowd was tonight at the proPark rally.”
The ruling allows possible criminal proceedings against the 65-year-old Park — prosecutors have already named her a criminal suspect — and makes her South Korea’s first democratically elected leader to be removed from office since democracy replaced dictatorship in the late 1980s.
It also deepens South Korea’s political and security uncertainty as it faces existential threats from North Korea, reported economic retaliation from a China furious about Seoul’s cooperation with the U.S. on an anti-missile system, and questions in Seoul about the Trump administration’s commitment to the U.S.-South Korea security alliance.
South Korea must hold an election within two months to choose Park’s successor.
Kim Yong-deok, the chief of the National Election Commission, said Saturday that the election would be managed “accurately and perfectly” and urged the public to participate in a vote that would “determine the fate of the Republic of Korea,” referring to South Korea’s formal name.
The Constitutional Court accused Park of colluding with longtime confidante Choi Soon-sil to extort tens of millions of dollars from businesses and letting Choi, a private citizen, meddle in state affairs and receive and look at documents with state secrets. Those allegations were previously made by prosecutors, but Park has refused to undergo any questioning, citing a law that gives a sitting leader immunity from prosecution.
It is not clear when prosecutors will try to interview her.
Some of Park’s supporters reacted with anger after the ruling, shouting and hitting police officers and reporters with plastic flag poles and steel ladders and climbing on police buses. Police and hospital officials said three people died while protesting Park’s removal, including a man in his 70s who died early Saturday after collapsing near the court.
“My heart is broken. There are so many parts of this that I can’t accept,” said Cho Cheol-hwan, a 56-yearold entrepreneur and Park supporter who was waving South Korean and U.S. flags, and one showing Park’s father.
“Park Geun-hye did something wrong, but her wrongdoing is not serious enough to be impeached,” Cho said. “If your kid makes a mistake, you teach them what is right.”