UPDATE - SKoreans stage 4th weekend of mass protests

UPDATES THROUGHOUT

By Alex Jensen

SEOUL (AA) - Hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets of central Seoul to call for President Park Geun-hye's resignation.

The weekend protest is the fourth consecutive mass protest against Park, with organizers estimating participants at around 500,000.

As night began to fall, protesters from all walks of life -- families, students and pensioners -- carried billboards demanding Park's resignation in the rally's epicenter, Gwanghwamun Square, and chanted slogans demanding she immediately bow out.

Yonhap news agency quoted a Seoul housewife, who said she was attending the rally for the second time, as saying that Park appeared to be turning a deaf ear to people's calls.

"She appears to believe the protests would, in the end, fizzle out. That is why I came here... to add to the chorus of the voices calling for her to leave office," Hwang Su-song said.

Fears were raised earlier in the day, when demonstrators convened outside City Hall near a counter-protest by thousands of Park supporters outside Seoul Station.

As of 9 p.m. (1200GMT), however, both sides had refrained from the violence that erupted during a large rally last November.

While the numbers had dwindled, many tens of thousands remained standing in Gwanghwamun with no sign of leaving.

Many held candles, with the crowd occasionally breaking into orchestrated chanting in waves.

Protests driven by an overwhelmingly anti-Park sentiment are being orchestrated across the nation in an effort to oust the president, whose Gallup Korea approval rating remained at a record-low five percent this week.

Park could soon be officially named as a suspect by prosecutors investigating a series of alleged abuses including forced donations by conglomerates to nonprofit organizations linked to the president and several of her now former aides.

Sunday is the deadline for state investigators to indict Park's detained secret confidante Choi Soon-sil, portrayed by the media as an invisible hand guiding the president behind the scenes.

The image has been promoted by accusations she abused her ties to Park for financial gain and to ensure benefits for family members.

Local reports have claimed prosecutors are to formalize the president's change in status from witness to suspect when bringing charges against Choi and others connected to the scandal.

Park is in line to become the first sitting South Korean leader to be interrogated next week after she vowed to cooperate with the prosecution.

Following a delay in her planned questioning this week, political opponents have been fueling public anger by accusing Park of seeking to buy time.

"If Park refuses to step down, we will take measures to suspend the constitutionally-guaranteed authority given to the president step by step," Democratic Party head Choo Mi-ae declared Friday.

Choo's implication of opening impeachment proceedings came as she suggested that the government could enforce martial law, a remark condemned as "extremely inappropriate" by the presidential office.