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Devotion to Park splits South Korea’s conservatives

SEOUL — Mr Chung Kwang-yong choked up when describing how much he missed Ms Park Geun-hye, the South Korean President, who has been cloistered in her official residence since her impeachment in December on corruption charges.

Supporters of South Korean President Park Geun-hye at a rally opposing calls for her resignation last November. Ms Park still commands an almost cult-like following among her supporters. Photo: Reuters

Supporters of South Korean President Park Geun-hye at a rally opposing calls for her resignation last November. Ms Park still commands an almost cult-like following among her supporters. Photo: Reuters

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SEOUL — Mr Chung Kwang-yong choked up when describing how much he missed Ms Park Geun-hye, the South Korean President, who has been cloistered in her official residence since her impeachment in December on corruption charges.

“Dear President Park Geun-hye, please come out. We miss you so much,” Mr Chung said before a large crowd that rallied in central Seoul on a recent Saturday to demand her immediate reinstatement. “You have done nothing wrong.”

Few South Korean leaders have ever been as besieged as Ms Park, whose presidential powers have been suspended since the National Assembly voted to impeach her on Dec 9. Recent surveys have ranked her as one of the least popular presidents ever, with about 80 per cent of respondents wanting her removed from office.

But Ms Park still commands an almost cult-like following among people such as Mr Chung, and that lingering devotion is fragmenting the country’s conservative bloc as it struggles to find a viable replacement candidate in an election that could take place as early as May.

In South Korean elections, conservatives have usually rallied around a single presidential candidate, propelling them to victory as progressive voters split among rival opposition candidates. Now, it is the divisions in the conservative ranks that are providing the progressives with an opportunity to return to power after a decade away from the presidential palace.

In December, a group of conservative lawmakers, disillusioned by the accusations of corruption and abuse of power made against Ms Park, joined the opposition in passing the Bill to impeach her. They then bolted from her governing Saenuri Party and created the new Bareun Party.

Its approval rating plunging and desperate to rebrand itself, Saenuri changed its name on Monday to the Liberty Korea Party. But it has been unable to redefine its relationship with Ms Park.

Many conservatives, including some Liberty Korea lawmakers, want to distance themselves from Ms Park and regroup around a new leader to have a fighting chance against progressive opposition leader Moon Jae-in in the election.

But other party members and right-wing groups, such as Mr Chung’s Parksamo, or “People Who Love Park Geun-hye”, want Ms Park, 65, to finish the final year of her five-year term.

These groups have organised increasingly large rallies in central Seoul in recent weeks, calling any conservative politician who turns against Ms Park a “betrayer”. Their rallies attract not only Ms Park loyalists but also older Koreans who share, if not their loyalty to Ms Park, their belief that the country’s progressive opposition is too sympathetic towards North Korea to be trusted.

“I have always voted conservative and always will, as long as North Korea exists,” said Mr Kim Myong-soo, 65, whose family fled Communist rule in the North during the Korean War. “But frankly, if an election is held now, I don’t know which conservative candidate to vote for. There is none who can win.”

To her critics, Ms Park has come to symbolise everything wrong with the country’s conservative elite, as she stands accused of conspiring with a long-time friend to extort tens of millions of dollars from big businesses in return for political favours. Prosecutors also accuse her of ordering a government blacklisting of artists, writers and movie directors deemed progressive, blocking them from government support programmes.

But according to flag-waving, military uniform-clad conservatives at the rallies, Ms Park was an innocent victim of a “sedition” masterminded by politically biased prosecutors, a “fake-news media” and “communists”.

Their rallies feature military parade songs and chants for Ms Park to “mobilise the military” to regain power, an echo of how her father, dictator Park Chung-hee, took power in a military coup in 1961. Some participants carried signs that said: “It’s okay to kill Commies!”

“They want to overthrow the government and establish a pro-North Korean regime,” theology professor Kim Chul-hong, a vocal supporter of Ms Park, said of the opposition during a news conference this month. “South Korea is now in a civil war.”

Few South Koreans believe that another military coup is possible. Mr Chung’s Parksamo is considered by many to be little more than a personality cult and an overzealous ideological outlier. (The group recently helped pay for a large newspaper advertisement that said: “Please don’t cry, Park Geun-hye!”)

But its Red-baiting campaign, a traditional vote-gathering tool for South Korean conservatives, has intensified as the country’s Constitutional Court prepares to rule on whether to reinstate Ms Park or formally end her presidency.

Many conservatives had looked to Mr Ban Ki-moon, the former United Nations secretary-general, to become their candidate. But Mr Ban pulled out of the race this month after he failed to narrow the gap in polls with Mr Moon, the progressive.

Highlighting the fractures among conservatives, as many as 10 politicians affiliated with the two conservative parties have declared their presidential ambitions, but none has a popularity rating higher than the low single digits.

Mr In Myung-jin, the leader of Liberty Korea, said he favoured Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn, who is serving as acting President, as his party’s candidate. Mr Hwang, who has no party affiliation, is the only conservative with a popularity rating of more than 10 per cent, ranking third in recent surveys after Mr Moon and a provincial governor, Mr Ahn Hee-jung, also a progressive.

But Mr Hwang has not committed to running yet, and critics deride his close ties to Ms Park. Mr Hwang also has never served in the military, an often fatal strike against men seeking the presidency in South Korea, which is technically still at war with North Korea. THE NEW YORK TIMES

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