The country’s leader, Park Geun-hye, has been mired in a scandal so strange it sounds like something out of a comic book. Whereas most politicians fall from grace due to banal things like corruption or marital infidelity, the fall of South Korea’s first female president has resulted from her relationship with a shadowy figure from an obscure religious cult that critics have derided as a “shaman fortuneteller” with sinister, Rasputin-like influence over Park. [...]
Choi reportedly communicated regularly with the president’s staff, provided input on top political appointments, and received presidential briefings, and, by Park’s own admission, was allowed to edit a number of Park’s major policy speeches. She even apparently controlled the president’s wardrobe, dictating which colors to wear on which days. [...]
Students and faculty at the super-competitive women’s private school finally got fed up with all the preferential treatment Chung was getting and in October of this year began holding public demonstrations on campus, eventually pushing the university’s president to resign.
Media coverage of the university scandal quickly began to shift, though, focusing on the much juicier story of Chung’s mother, Choi Soon-sil, and her disturbingly close relationship with the South Korean president, prompting Choi to flee to Germany to escape the increasingly intense media scrutiny.
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