At 11:22 a.m. on March 10, Lee Jeingmi, Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court, read the final sentence of the verdict, saying the court unanimously decided to dismiss President Prak Geunhye. That moment, after 92 days of the trial, the presidency of Park Geunheye immediately halted.

At that moment, pro-impeachment protesters in front of the courthouse applauded the verdict with hilarious overjoy, a moment of emancipation. On the other side, desperate anti-impeachment protesters were deeply disappointed, resorting to verbal and physical assaults, causing tragic, unnecessary deaths of poor old people.

It was a historic moment, signifying a gigantic political victory of millions of candlelight grassroots, South Korean indignados, who led a consecutively 134-day mobilisation, with more than 15 million people in all taking part in. Historically, Park joined the list of disgracefully ousted presidents, and her collapse sent the nostalgia for her father’s age into the dustbin of history for good.

 Princess is gone!

The final verdict was conclusive in that Park Geunhye was judged not fit to govern constitutionally. Judges did not recognise some irregularities and violations for the rationale for impeachment, but her confidante’s illegalities and her own abuse of power was more than enough cause for impeachment. The judges pointed to Park’s betrayal of people’s faith, her intention not to defend the constitution, her refusal to cooperate with the investigations, and her repeated lies.

Some were disappointed the negligence of duty in dealing Sewol ferry case was not recognised as a reason for impeachment. But supplementary opinions to the verdict said that Park violated her duty to protect life of people.

For Park and her defense lawyers, the unanimous verdict of 8 against 0 sounded shocking. After the final verdict of the Constitutional Court, Park, no longer president, was said to be in a deep shock, because she would not listen to anybody and keep her own groundless hope of the trial being dismissed or the case rejected until the final moment. She is even more shocked at the result of 8-0 verdict, because judges of the Constitutional Court were regarded mostly as conservative and two justices of the court were hand-picked by herself.

At the moment the verdict was finalised, her status as president stopped constitutionally, and she was obliged to leave the Blue House immediately. However, very strangely, she stays there, making no comments on the verdict nor clarifying her plan to leave. Her private home is said to be unfit yet for her coming back. This eerie, incomprehensible attitude invokes more doubts and contempts among still angry people.

Anyway, as her impeachment was finalised, Park, stripped of legal immunity, is expected to be subject to criminal investigations on various charges, joining dozens of her accomplices on trial. The state prosecution is supposed to begin the formal investigation on charges very soon, especially because Park refused the investigations by the prosecution and the Special Prosecutor, contrary to her own promise to cooperate with the investigations fully in her apology speeches. Definitely, she has no other option but to spend long years in prison, though some hope for next president’s amnesty prematurely.

 Ugly Attempts to Stop Impeachment

Since the parliamentary impeachment on December 9^th last year, the reactionary forces began the backlash. An umbrella coalition of anti-impeachment groups was formed by a mixture of extreme rights, anti-communist extremists, ultra-conservatives, Christian fundamentalists, and others. It began a series of counter-mobilisations against the candlelight protests.

Throughout the course of the impeachment trials, these anti-impeachment groups stepped up mobilisations, targeting the Constitutional Court and the Special Prosecutor. These reactionary, extreme rightists unfurled the Korean flag as a symbol, and also the Stars and Stripes, even Israeli flags. Reactionary protesters uttered outrageous, groundless condemnations, accusing the candlelight protests of acting under the directive from North Korea.

The organisers of anti-impeachment rallies exaggerated the scale of their protests, even claiming, with little ground, that their Korean flag mobilisations were much larger than the candlelight protests. At one point, just before the final verdict, they shamelessly claimed 5 million took part in their rally, though obviously it was less than 50,000.

This phenomenon is quite familiar for South Koreans because these rightwing extremists regularly mobilised to counter anti-government protests with a view to cover the government’s wrongdoings and neutralise the conflicts. They were notorious for ridiculing the victims and families of Sewol ferry incident. The ranks of reactionary protests are filled with conservative, poor old people, who are usually paid for their participation in protests. The South Korean chaebols, who were involved in the bribery and corruption scandal, regularly funded these groups, and the intelligence agencies are said to direct them behind the scene, funding them from illegitimate hidden budget sources.

In the course of the scandal, it was revealed that the secretaries in the presidential office directly gave orders these pro-government groups to mobolise and propagate misinformation. Thier remarks and threats were so outrageous that even conservative media were reluctant to broadcast directly. For the detailed reports would have drastically diminished the credibility of those reactionary groups. Some of the extremist thugs held the rally in front of the Special Prosecutor’s home, threatening him and his family. And some extreme rightwing internet broadcasts disseminated the private information of the judges.

Furthermore, the misinformation operation was organised systematically, and fake news on the scandal and the impeachment trial was widely circulated on the web. And on rally spot, illegal newspapers full of fake news and threats was distributed in tens of thousands copes. In spite of critical public opinion, the police were very cautious and slow to respond to these terrible threats and misinformation campaigns.

 Coming presidential election

As the presidency was vacated, the constitution requires the presidential election will be held within 60 days. Thus, technically, South Korean will elect a new president by early May. However, the presidential race has begun already since the parliamentary impeachment three months ago.

At the moment, Moon Jae-in, the candidate of Democratic Party, is leading most of the polls with a large margin, and he is followed by another DP candidate, Ahn Heejeong, a Governor of Chungnam Province. After conservative candidate, Bahn Gipmoon [Ban Ki-moon], former Secretary General of the UN, gave up his bid for the presidency in late-January, most of the conservative candidates, with so poor rare, are barely visible in the race, though Hwang Gyoahn, acting President and Prime Minister, runs as a conservative poll leader with less than half or a third of Moon’s share. However, his candidacy seems quite improbable, and the overall collapse of the conservative politics is clearly felt.

Therefore, it is almost certain that the liberals will harvest the fruit of historical struggles of candlelight grassroots. Trade unions and social movements played a key role in organising this historic struggle, but they were just a drop in the great ocean of millions-strong candlelights. Furthermore, the progressive politics is only partially represented by a moderate minority party, with 6 seats, Justice Party, after the illegalisation of the United Progressive Party in early 2015, which was dominated by the pro-North Korea nationalist tendency. Thus, structurally, trade unions and social movements lack the organisational mechanism to intervene the institutional politics in general and the presidential election in particular.

In the course of candlelight protests, the coalition of trade unions and social movement attempted to utter independent voices from the opposition parties, by organising a grassroots civic forum to discuss and debate on the meaning of the struggle and grassroots alternative for a next republic. However, this effort could not expand and was easily sidelined by the mainstream media.

 After historic civic revolution

In this historic struggle, South Koreans experienced another momentum of political upheaval, following the proud tradition of April Revolution in 1960, Gwangju Uprising 1980, and June Uprising in 1997. And the candlelight protests also revived the spirit of the 2008 protest against US Mad Cow beef import, ending the conservative rule and expanding and deepening democracy. Thus, South Korean democracy took another huge step, in spite of gloom crisis of South Korean capitalism.

It is high likely that the heroic struggle of candlelight grassroots will bring the liberal government, and it is definitely positive considering the poor performance and misgovernance by 9 years’ conservative regime. However, Moon Jae-in and his liberal opposition have neither genuine commitment to anti-neoliberal alternative nor actual capacity to implement the radical reform that grassroots hoped for in the course of this historic struggle.

Actually, the crisis-ridden liberal opposition could win the general election in 2016, not because of their capacity and credibility, but because of poor performance and arrogance of Park and her conservative cliques with the ruling party. Only under the huge pressure from the candlelight protests, they have followed the correct path to terminate the corrupt and incompetent conservative regime.

On the other hand, trade unions, social movements, and progressive politics are dispersed and disunited after failure in struggles against neoliberal offensives. Decisively, they failed to assert themselves as an alternative force independent from the liberal opposition. Thus, though they played an important part in the candlelight protests, they failed to provide political direction or strategic leadership in the course of the dynamic struggle.

Though the candlelight struggle won a historical victory and deepened democracy, the next step way for the future is ambiguously open. Either this opening could be closed after the presidential election, or it could be expanded and lead to a broader and deeper struggle for real issues beyond democracy. If trade unions and social movements learned the lesson, they could lead the next stage or the South Korea would need to wait for a next generation.

Youngsu Won
International Forum in Korea
IFiK – March 12, 2016