“The opposition is on the side of China, North Korea and even Russia, but South Korea is firmly allied with the United States,” proclaims this supporter of deposed President Yoon Suk-yeol, American and South Korean flags in hand. Refusing to give her name, she does not hesitate to speak out about the reasons for her support for the South Korean head of state, dismissed by a vote of the National Assembly on December 14. “President Yoon had the right to declare martial lawbut the Democratic Party has distorted reality and abused the law.”
This Saturday, January 4, the woman in her fifties is present near the presidential residence in Seoul. Like many demonstrators, she displays a sign «Stop the steal», (“Stop the Steal”) in English in the text, in an explicit reference to Donald Trump supporters who refused to recognize the result of the 2020 presidential election.
The scene comes the day after a new episode of this political crisis with twists and turns. On Friday morning, officials from the Corruption Investigation Office (CIO) came to execute an arrest warrant for “rebellion” and “abuse of power” issued against Yoon. But they encountered resistance from agents of the presidential security service and ended up returning empty-handed after more than five hours of confrontation.
Results of this surreal day: the deposed president, himself a former prosecutor, refused to submit to an arrest warrant legally issued by the South Korean justice system. In this judicial aspect, distinct from the examination of the validity of the dismissal by the Constitutional Court, the outcome remains unpredictable. “If he is arrested, we will have to hold new demonstrations,” promet Sung Young-jin, 50 ans. “The media and most people are all for stopping the president, but we voted for him and he was elected,” says the resident of North Gyeongsang, a very conservative southern province.
Stifled dissenting voices
Acting President Choi Sang-mok, who has been in charge of state affairs for just over a week, has not yet officially taken a position on the issue. A silence which allows him not to deviate from the line of the presidential party (PPP). Since the impeachment of December 14, the PPP has stifled dissenting voices and is trying to present a united front at the risk of being associated with the unpopular figure of Yoon, who has definitively alienated the moderate electorate by sending helicopters from the The army landed on the lawn of Parliament on December 3.
“Martial law was just because it got rid of anti-Korean forces,” asserts Mr. Cheong, who did not want to give his first name, repeating Yoon Suk-yeol’s argument. The 62-year-old retiree represents this radical fringe of South Korean conservatives, often elderly and for whom the Democratic Party and its leader Lee Jae-myung embody a threat far too red to be authorized.
“Electoral fraud”
The demonstrators met on Saturday unanimously evoke the legislative election last April, which according to them was “rigged”. Enough to justify sending a hundred soldiers to the offices of the national electoral commission on the evening of martial law. Taking on conspiratorial overtones, Cho Moon-ho, 64, claims to have seen “strange papers” on election night in his local polling station, without providing concrete evidence. His sign «Stop the Steal» is accompanied by a drawing representing two hands sliding a ballot into the ballot box, the right painted in the colors of China and the left with those of North Korea. “I didn’t support President Yoon that much, but the current situation made me come here, testifies Kim Jae-min, 36 years old. I think people focus too much on martial law but they forget why it was declared, which was electoral fraud.”
Long before the martial law episode, this very vocal minority regularly organized large gatherings in the heart of Seoul, notably under the leadership of Pastor Jeon Kwang-hoon. Again on Saturday, December 28, the founder of the Presbyterian Church Sarang Jeil harangued tens of thousands of followers during a counter-demonstration contrasting with the ocean of light sticks brandished by pro-impeachment demonstrators, a few hundred meters away far. For a little over a month, the most conservative voters have adopted a new fight: to protect their president at all costs. The latter thanked them in a letter revealed on January 1 by the South Korean media, in which he indicated that he wanted to fight “to the end”. A formulation vilified by the opposition, which interprets it as an incitement to confrontation.
Source: www.liberation.fr
