SOUTH KOREANS used to joke that if the conservative Saenuri party put up a plank of wood as a candidate for election, voters in the city of Daegu would support it with gusto. Four-fifths of voters in the surrounding province of North Gyeongsang plumped for Park Geun-hye, the conservative candidate, in the presidential election that brought her to power in 2012. Until last year conservatives had swept every ballot since 1985 in Daegu, her home town. Yet when Ms Park’s approval rating sank to a record low of 4% in November amid a sensational influence-peddling scandal, it fell further still, to 3%, in Daegu.
Since revelations surfaced that Ms Park let a long-standing confidante, Choi Soon-sil, meddle inappropriately in presidential affairs, the city has held weekly demonstrations demanding that she should step down. Rumours of the influence of the Choi family over the Parks have swirled since the rule of Park Chung-hee, Ms Park’s late father and a former military dictator, who was born in the nearby city of Gumi. At the height of the rallies in Daegu, more than 100 civic organisations marshalled 50,000 protesters. That makes them the biggest...Continue reading
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