The government of South Korea is taking steps to disband an ultra-Leftist political party.  If the Constitutional Court actual does rule in favor of the lawsuit, if would be the first time a political party has been scrapped since the dictatorial days of South Korea’s president Syngman Rhee in 1958.

“The platform of the Unified Progressive Party pursues a North Korean-style socialism,” said conservative Saenuri Party Justice Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn at a news conference.  “We determined that its activities, such as a treason plot by its core elements, followed North Korea’s strategy to revolutionize the South.”

President Park Geun-hye quickly approved of her party’s lawsuit.  United Progressive Party leader Lee Jung-hee accused President Park of restarting the dictatorship of her father Park Chung-hee, the murderous autocrat who tortured and killed his political rivals under the pretext they were plotting on the North’s behalf; those charges were thrown out for lack of evidence when Democracy finally took root in the South decades later.

“This is a rude anti-democratic violation of the Constitution, which guarantees the freedom of political activities,” Lee Jung-hee said.  “This is a blatant and shameless political revenge.”

The Unified Progressive Party holds only six of 299 seats in South Korea’s National Assembly.  The main opposition considers it too radical and keeps an arm’s length. 

But ever since President Park took office in February, South Korea has been rocked by a series of ideological scandals.  A former head of the National Intelligence Service is on trial for running a team of spies in a smear campaign against Park’s opponents, like her father calling them agents of the North.  After that, Park’s government arrested some Unified Progressive Party members, accusing them of plotting an armed rebellion, again on behalf of the North.  One of the accused is a lawmaker.