SEOUL – They gathered in subzero temperatures and waved banners that read, “Stop the theft.”
Some expressed faint hope that President-elect Donald Trump would support their cause; others accused the Chinese Communist Party of infiltrating South Korea's news media.
All of this served a single goal: saving South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol.
A month after his short-lived declaration of martial law led to the removal of his presidential powers, Yoon, who faces impeachment and criminal insurrection investigations, managed to avoid capture by hiding in his presidential residence in central Seoul.
The fenced-in compound, now fortified with barbed wire and buses parked as a barricade, has become a rallying point for his last remaining supporters: ultra-conservative protesters and YouTubers who, Yoon has claimed, believe the country has been overrun by North Korean sympathizers conspiring to destroy South Korea's freedoms.
Among those who gathered here on Wednesday was Lee Kwang-hoon, a 63-year-old apartment guard who had made his way from work to join the several hundred Yoon supporters lining the main street opposite the residence of the President.
“The leftists are trying to denounce President Yoon on insurrection charges,” he said. “We are here to save the country.”
The group consists primarily of older South Koreans in their 60s and 70s, driven by the passionate anti-communist ethos of an earlier era. She has aligned herself with Christian extremists, the American far right and YouTube channels awash in conspiracy theories.
Although Lee and his colleagues have long been dismissed as bigots by the general public, they have found a new source of legitimacy: Yoon, who in recent weeks has openly laid out their ideas, including a widely debunked election conspiracy theory that is at the center of his botched fight was a declaration of law.
In a recent public address, Yoon admitted that he had ordered his defense minister to inspect the National Election Commission's electronic systems, suggesting that the results of last year's general election – which gave the country's Liberal party a massive parliamentary majority – false were the result of deception.
“How could the South Korean people trust the election results?” Yoon asked.
Amid his mounting concerns, the president has become even more vocal about his affinity for the far right.
On January 1, two days before South Korean investigators made their first unsuccessful attempt to arrest him, he sent his supporters a signed letter repeating the familiar clarion call against “anti-state” forces and promising to “fight to the end.” ”
“I am following your efforts through live broadcasts on YouTube,” the letter said.
As investigators prepare for a second attempt in the coming days, Lee said he would stand between them and the president.
“Even if they send the special police force, I will block them with my body,” he said. “I would rather sacrifice my own life than live in a country controlled by communists.”
Even before the current crisis, Yoon's support of right-wing YouTubers sparked concern.
More than two dozen YouTube personalities were invited to Yoon's inauguration by First Lady Kim Keon-hee. Some were later appointed to government positions.
In a memoir published last year, Kim Jin-pyo, the former speaker of the National Assembly, recalled meeting Yoon shortly after the 2022 Itaewon Halloween disaster, in which 159 people were crushed to death after becoming trapped in a narrow alley .
When Kim called for Interior Minister Lee Sang-min's resignation, Yoon responded that he had “strong suspicions” about the “possibility that the incident was engineered and fabricated by certain forces,” Kim wrote.
“I couldn’t believe that the kind of conspiracy theory discussion heard on far-right YouTube shows came from the president’s mouth,” the former speaker said.
Instead of distancing themselves from Yoon, many in his party have followed suit in recent weeks.
On Sunday, several lawmakers from Yoon's conservative People Power Party attended a rally by Jeon Kwang-hoon, an ultra-conservative pastor who has sparked controversy for demonizing Muslims and advocating the institutionalization of gay people.
The following day, 44 of them attended the rally in front of the presidential residence to show their support.
“I express my full respect for these efforts to protect the president and the country,” said lawmaker Yoon Sang-hyun.
Some within the conservative camp expressed concern about the party's embrace of a group that most mainstream conservatives had previously kept at arm's length, as well as the prosecution of lawmakers who have broken the party line to push for the impeachment and arrest of the president to support presidents.
Kim Sang-wook, a PPP lawmaker who represents one of these dissenting voices, recently revealed that he had been ostracized by senior party members, one of whom had pressured him to quit the party.
“This is a totalitarian idea and just something a far-right party would say,” he told reporters on Thursday.
Experts say the PPP's refusal to abandon Yoon amounts to little more than an attempt at survival.
“I think the PPP leadership has essentially concluded that without a viable exit strategy, they have no choice but to stand by Yoon,” said Jung Byung-kee, a political scientist at Yeungnam University. “The likelihood that Yoon's impeachment will be confirmed is very high, and if that happens, the PPP will become the political party that has already been indicted twice. Then they lose their right to exist at all.”
In 2017, Park Geun-hye, another conservative, became the first South Korean president to be ousted from office following a corruption scandal that brought over a million protesters to the streets.
Despite the fervor of Yoon's supporters, Jung points out that they are a vocal minority who represent a dying breed in politics.
According to a recent poll by polling firm Hankook Research, 70% of South Koreans believe the country's Constitutional Court should uphold Yoon's removal from office, and a similar percentage said they believed Yoon's declaration of martial law constituted an insurrection.
“This kind of deeply ideological anti-communist politics only works with people over 70,” Jung said.