Citizens still angry after President's emotional speech
People watch a TV screen showing the live broadcast of President Park Geun-hye’s address, at Seoul Station, Friday. / AP-Yonhap
By Jung Min-ho
The emotional speech President Park Geun-hye delivered Friday in a last-ditch attempt to placate angry citizens across Korea appears to have been unsuccessful.
Many citizens, including those who claim to have been her loyal supporters in the past, said they are not convinced by her speech and do not want the disgraced President in the country’s highest office anymore.
“The speech did nothing but fuel my anger,” Kang Nam-kyu, 27, said. “The worst part was watching her trying to depict herself as a victim, not the root, of the corruption scandal.”
“I did not vote for Park in the presidential election. But I never thought that she should step down in the middle of her term. Now I strongly believe she should.”
Kang said he was one of the 20,000 citizens gathered at Cheonggye Plaza, last Saturday, to call for her to step down. And he will return there when the next big protest takes place on Nov. 12.
“Even police officers were nice to protesters when I was there. I could feel their frustration as citizens just like us,” he said.
Lee Hye-jin, 46, rarely pays attention to politics. The only politician she can recognize with confidence is President Park, who has deeply disappointed her over the past month.
“I’m so angry, but her apology did not make me feel any better,” she said. “I believe that the scandal stirred up anger among many people who usually don’t care about politics like me. Many people around me were already upset over the economy, and the scandal redirected the anger toward the President.”
As a mother of two children, Lee said she was shocked most by special treatment given to Chung Yoo-ra, Choi Soon-sil’s daughter. They are suspected of having received many illegal privileges, which apparently came from Choi’s friendship with President Park.
Born and raised in South Gyeongsang Province, the long-time stronghold for Saenuri Party, Lee Kyo-sung, 66, supported Park for a long time until the recent political mayhem came to the fore.
“I voted for Park at the last presidential election, and now I want her step down,” he said. “Her emotional speech might have changed how some people feel about her, but not me.”
Most of his hometown friends have turned their back on her after the scandal, in which Choi, not the person they voted for, managed many state affairs behind the curtain.
“As a Christian, it is also beyond deplorable that Choi is a shaman. Park denied it, but I don’t trust her,” he said.
For Lim Ja-hoon, a civil-rights lawyer, the worst part of Park’s speech was her effort to paint leaders of conglomerates as among the victims of the scandal, after they gave money for the shady foundations, which are de facto owned by Choi.
“They are the accomplices, not the victims,” he said. “If you look at what the government has done under Park’s watch, I think they received what they paid for. The government did not answer the persistent demands for higher corporate taxes and it implemented the so-called labor reform. All these serve the interests of conglomerates. This is why I believe the money was part of the ‘deals’ between business leaders and the government.”