People are missing context here.
It's pretty much the spirituality angle that's making this scandal so explosive. Politicians being controlled by private interests is pretty bog standard, even to be expected. The leader of your democratic country being the hand puppet of a person who earned the President's trust by claiming to be able to channel her dead mother's spirit is very unsettling and calls into question her soundness of mind. Even the Muslim imam analogy doesn't quite capture it, it's more like if Obama ran every decision by the leader of Heaven's Gate before he acted.
The President's association with this confidant has major implications because of the fact that the confidant used her friendship with the President to coerce donations to crooked non-profits she runs, along with the fact that the President was apparently incredibly dependent on this person. An example of this dependency was
the capsizing of a ferry carrying hundreds of middle school students, most of whom died. This was a huge incident for many reasons, but the President did not make a public statement on it for quite a number of hours, which was seen as quite bizarre at the time. There is now speculation that she did not address the nation immediately after the incident because her confidant was in Germany at the time and was probably sleeping, thus unable to advise the President on what to do or say.
