South Korea: president orders 10 staff members to resign amid worsening crisis

Park Geun-hye under investigation over claims she let an old friend and daughter of a religious cult leader interfere in important state affairs

Citizens hold placards during a protest, demanding President Park Geun-hye to step down. Photograph: YONHAP/EPA

Saturday 29 October 2016

South Korean President Park Geun-hye has ordered 10 of her senior secretaries to resign after she admitted letting an old friend and daughter of a religious cult leader to interfere in important state affairs.

The announcement by Park’s office came on the eve of large anti-government protests planned in Seoul on Saturday over the scandal that is likely to deepen the president’s lame duck status ahead of next year’s elections.

Park has been facing calls to reshuffle her office after she admitted on Tuesday that she provided longtime friend Choi Soon-sil drafts of her speeches for editing. Her televised apology sparked huge criticism about her mismanagement of national information and heavy-handed leadership style many see as lacking in transparency.

There’s also media speculation that Choi, who holds no government job, meddled in government decisions on personnel and policy and exploited her ties with the president to misappropriate funds from nonprofit organisations.

The saga, triggered by weeks of media reports, has sent Park’s approval ratings to record lows and the minority opposition Justice party has called for her to resign.

South Korean President Park Geun-hye has offered a public apology after a South Korean TV network reported reported that Choi Soon-sil, who has no official governmental position, was informally involved in editing some of Park’s key speeches. Photograph: Handout/Getty Images

In the last few days, prosecutors widened their investigation by raiding the homes and offices belonging to Choi and some of her associates and also the offices of two nonprofit foundations she supposedly controlled.

Park’s aides on the way out include Woo Byung-woo, senior presidential secretary for civil affairs, and Ahn Jong-bom, senior secretary for economic affairs. Lee Won-jong, Park’s chief of staff, tendered his resignation on Wednesday.

Woo has been blamed for failing to prevent Choi from influencing state affairs and has also been embroiled in separate corruption allegations surrounding his family.

Ahn is under suspicion that he helped Choi pressure South Korean companies into making large donations to the Mir and K-Sports foundations, launched in October last year and January this year, respectively. Choi reportedly masterminded the creation of the two nonprofits, which managed to gather around $70m in corporate donations over a short period of time, and is suspected of misappropriating some of these funds for personal use.

Park’s office said she plans to announce a new lineup of senior secretaries soon.

Choi’s lawyer Lee Gyeong-jae told reporters on Friday that she is currently in Germany and is willing to return to South Korea if prosecutors summon her. In an interview with a South Korean newspaper earlier this week, Choi admitted receiving presidential documents in advance, but denied intervening in state affairs or pressuring companies into donating to the foundations.

Choi and Park reportedly became friends in the 1970s when Choi’s late father, Choi Tae-min, a shadowy religious figure who was a Buddhist monk, cult leader and Christian pastor at different points of his life, emerged as Park’s mentor.

At the time, Park was serving as acting first lady after her mother was killed in 1974 by a man trying to assassinate her father, military strongman Park Chung-hee, who would be murdered by his own spy chief five years later.

Kim Jae-gyu, the Korean Central Intelligence Agency director who was later executed, told a court that one of his motives for assassinating Park Chung-hee was his refusal to look into the elder Choi’s corrupt activities and keep Choi away from Park’s daughter.

Park’s ties with the Choi family have haunted her political career even after Choi Tae-min’s 1994 death. Local media reports alleged that the Choi clan used their relationship with Park to take bribes from government officials and businesspeople.