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November 19th, 2016 
Awake Goy 
nsnbc. South Koreans rallied again to demand the President park Geun-hye step down. Rallies were held in the capital Seoul and 69 other locations throughout the country.
President Park Geun-hye’s term began in February 2013. The South Korean Constitution prohibits a president to serve more than one five-year term, and President Park has been pushing hard for constitutional change. However, most protesters demand that she leave her office before her term expires in 2018.
Last Saturday has seen the largest rally in Seoul since 1987 that ended the country’s dictatorship with over one million rallying in the capital. This Saturday, however, the organizers of the protests had shifted strategy and organized rallies in 69 cities, towns and villages. An estimated 350,000 rallied in Seoul on Saturday evening while an estimated total of 600,000 turned out nationwide.
The organizers of the protests stated that about 1,500 civil society organizations participated in the rally in Seoul. his Saturday was the fourth protest rally since the scandal involving President Park and her decades-long confidente erupted last month and caused a wave of indignation and outrage that could not be stopped by President Park’s public apologies.
Choi Soon-sil, whose friendship with Park dates back to the 1970s, and two former presidential secretaries are scheduled to be indicted by prosecutors on Sunday. Choi is suspected of interfering State affairs behind the scenes.
Outrage and alienation from the Park administration was especially evident in the country’s southeast regions, which are traditionally a political stronghold for Park and her ruling Saenuri Party. The regions presented multiple election victories to them since Park entered the political sphere in 1998.
In the southeastern port city of Busan, over 50,000 people gathered on the streets with candles in hand. Over 12,000 protesters marched in the southern city of Daegu, according to local cable news channel JTBC. Daegu is described as a political hometown of the president, who entered politics by being elected a lawmaker in the city.
In Seoul three main opposition parties held separate rallies around the Gwanghwamun square. Presidential hopefuls in the opposition bloc joined candlelight vigils in major cities outside Seoul.
Most of the presidential hopefuls demanded President Park immediately step down, while Lee Jae-myung, Mayor of Seongnam city in Gyonnggi province, maintained his position that procedures to impeach the president should be launched immediately. The Seongnam Mayor’s support rate recently jumped to the double digits on his active participation in the protest rallies.
Choo Mi-ae, chairwoman of the No. 1 opposition Minjoo Party, said in her speech in Seoul that President Park will be described as “the worst traitor” in history as the president with an approval rating of 5 percent pushes for a military intelligence pact with Japan, the country’s former colonial ruler.
Park’s approval scores stayed at 5 percent for three weeks in a row, the lowest for any South Korean president, according to a weekly public opinion poll by Gallup Korea. In other words, lower than the approval rating of Syria’s embattled President Al-Assad.
The embattled president is trying to normalize State affairs, appointing new vice ministers and foreign missions earlier this week. Park on Wednesday ordered a thorough investigation into a corruption scandal involving the tourism complex development in Busan.
The President is believed to chair a cabinet meeting next Tuesday, when major government policies would be approved such as the military intelligence pact with Japan and the special prosecutor bill on the Choi Soon-sil case. It would be Park’s first cabinet meeting in over a month.
Protesters and leading politicians became even more outraged when President Park announced she would delay a face-to-face questioning by prosecutors to next week. Park said in her second public apology that she would accept an investigation into herself if necessary. The prosecution office had asked Park to be investigated no later than Wednesday, requesting it once again as late as Friday.
F/AK – nsnbc 19.11.2016
Source Article from http://nsnbc.me/2016/11/19/south-koreans-continue-rallies-demanding-president-park-geun-hye-step-down/
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