SKoreans hold sixth weekend of anti-president protests

By Alex Jensen

SEOUL (AA) - Cities across South Korea featured an increasingly familiar sight Saturday, as thousands upon thousands of ordinary citizens rallied for a sixth weekend in a row to demand President Park Geun-hye’s resignation.

Park faces the possibility of becoming her country’s first sitting president to be impeached after being linked to a scam involving forced company donations and allegedly allowing an unofficial confidante to secretly influence state affairs.

Seoul was again the focal point in this series of peaceful, almost party-atmosphere protests -- but it remained to be seen whether the number of participants in the capital would exceed the 1.5 million estimated by organizers the previous Saturday evening.

Protesters split across the city during the afternoon.

Around 500,000 initially convened before a march on the presidential office at 4 p.m. (0700GMT) having been given the green light by a local court to stand just 100 meters away, while 20,000 others demonstrated outside the headquarters of the ruling Saenuri Party.

A spokesperson for the protest movement -- comprised of 1,500 civic groups -- said they would demand the disbandment of the ruling camp, which is blamed for holding back the liberal bloc’s impeachment motion that needs a two-thirds parliamentary majority.

At least 28 Saenuri votes will be required when a vote finally takes place next Friday -- and they may yet be supplied by the party’s anti-Park faction.

But conservatives disloyal to the president were swayed by her conditional offer to step down Tuesday -- the ruling camp has even been reunited in the desire for Park to resign in April, allowing more time to regain lost political ground ahead of an early presidential election.

They were met Saturday with chants of “Resign, Park Geun-hye. Dissolve the Saenuri Party!”

Elsewhere, 15,000 Park supporters staged their own counter-protest despite her Gallup Korea approval rating staying at a record-low four percent after weeks in the single-digit range.

The main focus of the evening was once more to be the presidential office area, with a second march on Park’s base at 7 p.m. and an hours-long candlelight vigil planned.