SEOUL: Pressure mounted on Saturday on beleaguered South Korean President Park Geun-Hye over a personal and political scandal, as prosecutors raided the homes of senior aides and thousands joined a protest in central Seoul demanding her resignation.

With just over a year left to run, Park’s presidency has suddenly unravelled over shocking revelations of how she allowed a close personal friend, with no official position, to meddle in affairs of state.

Over the past week, the media has been full of increasingly sensational reports regarding Choi Soon-Sil, the 60-year-old daughter of a shadowy religious leader and one-time Park mentor.

Invoking a lurid back-story of religious cults, shamanist rituals and corruption, the reports have portrayed Choi as a Rasputin-like figure whose influence over Park extended to vetting her presidential speeches and advising on key appointments and policy issues.

On Saturday morning, prosecutors confiscated computers and documents from the homes of a top presidential adviser and two other aides as well as a deputy culture minister, Yonhap news agency said.

The raids came hours before thousands took to the streets of central Seoul in a candle-lit rally, denouncing Choi as a dangerous charlatan and calling on Park to step down.

Teenagers in school uniforms, college students, labour activists, and middle-aged couples with young children joined the rally, carrying banners and chanting “step down Park Geun-Hye”.

“I came here today to show how angry I am,” said Lee Ji-Hu, a 33-year-old housewife from Gimpo, northwest of Seoul, accompanied by her husband and two infant children in strollers.

“How can a leader have a shaman, or someone linked to a religious cult as a secret adviser and let her handle state affairs and squander taxpayers’ money like that?” Lee said.

“I feel so ashamed ... I can’t let our country where my children will live be corrupted like this,” she added.

Published in Dawn October 30th, 2016