You know there was a military coup attempt last December 3 by the then president Yoon Suk-yeol himself. The auto-coup was thwarted by ordinary people’s resistance within six hours.

The martial law decree explicitly targeted the left as well as top leaders of Democratic Party, the main opposition party. The decree ordered to reserve the right to free speech and press as well as the political rights.

So the cause of Yoon Suk-yeol’s auto-coup was obvious: His hatred against the left. On announcing the martial law Yoon made it clear that he will “wipe out anti-state forces in one fell swoop.”

Yoon thought the North Korean and the Chinese states pulled the strings of the South Korean left.

But what was striking was that Yoon thought the Chinese and North Korean states pulled the strings of the South Korean Democratic Party, a bourgeois reformist party. He really believed Chinese and North Korean secret intelligence services infiltrated spies into Soth Korea’s National Election Commission and rigged the general election in 2023 so the Democratic Party could win.

This is a conspiracy theory. But you should not dismiss it as his irrational paranoia, as most reformists do. Yoon’s and his far right supporters’ belief that China and North Korea pull strings from behind is part of wider beliefs about global geopolitics, which is characterized by US-China inter-imperialist tensions.

So Yoon’s auto-coup had increasing inter-imperialist conflicts as the background, and his conspiracy theory is part of South Korean far right ideology supporting their pro American imperialism.

Now, Yoon was impeached thanks to the ordinary people’s mobilisations. But ‘the Yoon Suk-yeol government without Yoon Suk-yeol’ is still there, and it finishes its term of office until June 3, when the next presidential election is held.

And it’s worth noticing that Trump seems to support the current prime minister Han Duck-soo, who is in charge of the ‘Yoon government without Yoon’. So it’s possible that the prime minister will be a candidate for the ruling party, People Power Party, at the next presidential election.

The opposition’s candidate will undoubtedly be Lee Jae-myung, Democratic Party leader. But he is also supported by Stalinist party, the Progressive Party, through the Popular Front.

We as a revolutionary left will make use of critical vote tactic for the Popular Front candidate. There’s no visible leftist candidate, and will probably be none at the election.

What really matters is, however, counter-mobilisations against the far right which also supports the ruling PPP, People Power Party. And the counter-mobilisation’s base will need to be united fronts. And the united fronts will need to involve workers organisations.

Thank you for inviting me.