As impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol has hidden inside his home fending off efforts to arrest him over a failed martial law bid, his supporters have camped outside waving placards bearing a famous Trump-esque slogan.
Yoon’s defenders have waved American flags and carried signs that read “Stop the Steal”, echoing Donald Trump’s false claims of voter fraud when he lost the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden.
South Korea’s conservative Christian right wing, an influential support base for Yoon, has co-opted the line to echo his comments that questioned the credibility of the election commission after he briefly imposed martial law last month.
Yoon’s conservative People’s Power Party lost parliamentary polls in April last year and in 2020.
“I firmly believe there was electoral fraud,” Jay Yoon, an unrelated supporter of the suspended president aged in her 40s, told AFP outside the presidential residence.
“This is something that absolutely cannot occur, and I am perplexed as to why this issue has not been addressed at all.”
President Yoon said after his December 3 martial law declaration that he had to quell “anti-state forces”.
He claimed in a later speech South Korea’s National Election Commission (NEC) ignored warnings about North Korean threats to voter data and did not fully cooperate with inspections conducted by the intelligence agency.
No voter fraud was proven in the 2020 election and no evidence has emerged of voter fraud in the 2024 election despite Yoon’s claims, the commission told AFP.
– ‘Combat electoral fraud’ –
Like the United States, South Korea’s “Stop the Steal” campaign has been fuelled by online misinformation about election fraud.
AFP’s Factcheck team witnessed a resurgence of unsubstantiated election fraud claims after Yoon declared martial law.
The wave of misinformation targeted the NEC, where Yoon sent soldiers the night of his short-lived martial law declaration.
Social media users shared old reports about a lawsuit over alleged fraud in the 2020 parliamentary election, even though the suit was dismissed, AFP’s Factcheck team reported.
Yoon’s supporters insist the slogan is underlined by real concerns about South Korea’s electoral processes.
“We believe the imposition of martial law was an exercise of Yoon’s legitimate presidential authority to combat electoral fraud,” supporter Brandon Kang, 28, told AFP.
Kang, an office worker, called it “similar to the situation during the (2020) US elections”.
The American flags at the protests are also a show of support for Seoul’s US alliance and criticism of the opposition, accused by Yoon of being in league with nuclear-armed North Korea to undermine the South.
Park Jong-hwan, 59, said he flew the US flag in support of Yoon because opposition leader Lee Jae-myung “advocates for the withdrawal of US troops from South Korea”.
Lee has never made a public statement calling for the withdrawal of US troops, saying only that the country’s army should be ready for any US departure.
The link between the South Korean and US right is religious, analysts say.
“Both groups share a similar base, consisting of primarily conservative Christian fundamentalists,” Gi-Wook Shin, a sociology professor at Stanford University, told AFP.
“This is a good example of Trumpism diffusing as a political phenomenon beyond the US.”
– ‘Return to power’ –
But the key aim of Yoon’s supporters is to have their suspended leader back in office, like Trump will be in two weeks.
“The protesters are hoping they can influence the public opinion against Yoon’s impeachment so that he can return to power,” Shin said.
Yoon has encouraged his backers, vowing to fight to “the very end” as he watched a YouTube livestream while refusing to obey an arrest warrant.
The opposition accused Yoon of trying to stoke clashes and observers see the Trump-esque trend as worrying for South Korean democracy.
“This will only exacerbate the growing political polarisation in Korea, which poses further threats to Korean democracy and the rule of law,” Shin said.
“The social risks are significant.”
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