An ongoing saga of the South Korean President and her powerful shadow

No, that’s not Los Angeles

With all that’s going on in America due to the presidential election, it can be easy to overlook what’s going on in the rest of the world.

When I see reference to the protests popping up throughout cities on the west coast, I find it fascinating to see something similar happening on the other side of the Pacific Ocean.

Of course, aside from the fact that there are presidential protests in both the United States and South Korea, there aren’t a whole lot of similarities beyond that.

In the past couple of weeks, I’ve reflected on my experience observing a conspiracy, pertaining to South Korean President Park Geun-hye being controlled by a powerful woman in Choi Soon-sil — the daughter of a powerful cult figure, turn mainstream (Part 1 here).

I then tracked how that developing story affected President Park’s administration and certain South Korean companies (Part 2 here).

Since then there have been massive protests in Seoul (speculating a quarter-of-a-million to a half-a-million to a million in size); a bi-partisan agreement by the two biggest opposition parties for an independent investigation council; a plummeting presidential approval rating; plenty of outcries that the country’s leader should step down; and one ‘cheeky’ satirical app mocking President Park.

There’s been a focus on “53 local companies that gave a combined $66.5M in donations” to Mir Foundation and K-Sports Foundation in return for potential favors — including the questioning of South Korea’s top steelmaker, POSCO’s chairman, Kwon Oh-joon. Even the South Korean offices of Samsung have been raided —probably because, apparently, 2.8M Euros was paid for a horse.

There’s been speculation on a potential real estate scam in Cheorwon involving the Eco-Peace Park. There’s been speculation already on who might replace President Park. There’s been speculation that Choi Tae-min, Choi Soon-sil’s father, “convinced Ms. Park that he could communicate with her dead mother”. And of course, there’s speculation on how this greatly affects the “US Asia pivot”.

And despite all that corruption and strangeness… President Park has NOT resigned. Meanwhile her mentor, confidant, speech re-writer and powerful shadow, Choi Soon-sil, will be put on trial in mid-November as she continues to deny any wrong-doings.

It’s interesting to me to throw up a mirror comparing these two sets of presidential protests considering their simultaneous occurrences.

If half-a-million people did protest in South Korea, that’s approximately 1% of its roughly 50 million population.

If the US had an equivalent, that would mean roughly 3.24 million people rallying in one city. Seems unlikely, right?

That’s where the big difference is in these two sets of protests. Here, in the United States, it feels like the population is increasing its divide along the two-party fault line. Where as, in South Korea it feels like the population, as a whole, rallied together around their escalating presidential scandal.

So I can’t help but wonder: what would have to occur for people on either side of the American political fence to actually come together? Extreme, undeniable corruption? Collapsing economy? First contact?

Strap in because it appears the only thing predictable about this new chapter in history will be its unpredictability.

[PART 1 ; PART 2]