Tomorrow, the ninth of March, is election day in South Korea. The campaign, a particularly negative one featuring a slate of candidates with plenty of both populist followers and glaring personal flaws, has left a particularly foul taste in people’s mouths. The general expectation is that of continued political polarization and acrimony after Wednesday’s vote, and a result that will leave a substantial portion of the population feeling disgruntled and bitter.
On one end, Lee Jae-myung, ex-governor of Korea’s central Gyeonggi Province (the most populous in the ROK), is a running as the ruling party candidate to succeed the outgoing liberal president Moon Jae-in (a successor role that Lee himself prefers to deny). His opponent is Yoon Suk-yeol, a political newbie who was ironically appointed by the Moon administration to the office of prosecutor-general and who is now a populist champion amongst conservative voters. To one section of the population, Yoon is a champion of justice; to another, he is a swampy feature of a corrupt prosecutorial system and the hypocritical head of a hypocritical household (with the most egregious members being his mother-in-law and his wife, Kim Kun-hee). Likewise, to Lee Jae-myung’s followers, Lee is a visionary leader with a knack for powerful leadership (hence his campaign slogan of 이재명은 합니다 or “Lee Jae-myung gets it done”); to his detractors, however, he is a corrupt bureaucrat with a lurid personal/family background and the potential mastermind behind the development corruption scandal surrounding the now infamous land-development project at Daejang-dong in Seongnam-si (an affluent suburb of Seoul in which Lee was mayor). The polls have it as a tight race, if not one that might lean towards a Yoon win. Here is a brief summary of some things that I will be keeping in mind while watching the election tomorrow.
Wave Elections, Electoral Politics, and the Current Outlook
This is the third major election in three years in South Korea. In 2020, during the height of the pandemic, South Korea held its twenty-first round of legislative elections to fill all 300 seats of the National Assembly. Though politically wounded for the first meaningful time in the form of the furor over the appointment of Cho Kuk to the position of Justice Minister in 2019, President Moon and his party was undoubtedly boosted by the pandemic situation in Korea, which started terribly in February due to regional outbreaks in Daegu and within the Sincheonji cult community but which had rapidly improved by April. Boosted by talks of a successful K 방역 (lit. disease prevention) brand and rallying under the banner slogan of 국난극복 (lit. overcoming national crisis), the ruling party won a landslide victory on the issue of stable leadership .
The alternative provided by 정권심판론 (lit. punishing the ruling government) might have gained currency if the election had been held in late 2019, when the Cho Kuk scandal and the hypocrisy of a ruling party that had gained power in 2017 as a reaction against cronyism and corruption were highlighted. But in the context of an unprecedented emergency such political purgation felt secondary and even counterproductive to a unified and competent government tasked with navigating a major crisis. Conversely, the conservative opposition was still too tarnished with the stain of fanaticism and the old regime to be seen as a credible alternative to the government by the mainstream of Korean society. Hwang Gyo-an, the leader of the United Future Party (the successor of the politically tarnished Saenuri/Liberty Korea parties), in hindsight, would have still represented too much of the disgraced and impeached Park Geun-hye administration (with Hwang having served as Park’s prime minister and acting president after her impeachment and removal) to be an attractive choice for political change. In Korea as elsewhere, what feels off to the mainstream or to polite society does not fare well in the polls. Korean politics is very much affected by public perception, social acceptability, and mainstream narratives.
As such, the election was another landslide “wave” election victory for the ruling party, with the opposition UFP barely holding on to just over a third of the seats. This was a crushing victory for the government, but one that was, in hindsight, more fragile than the partisan seat numbers alone would suggest. The final number of seats won by the ruling Democratic Party of Korea was inflated by a number of slight wins in swing seats (the high number of these swing races partly contributing to the unfounded allegations of electoral fraud by some fringe opposition politicians).
However, as mentioned above, political results are contingent on popular narratives, and these popular opinions shift very quickly in Korea. Just a year after the government’s victory in the legislative elections, Me Too scandals caused the Democratic-held mayoralties of Seoul and Busan (South Korea’s two largest cities) to become empty, requiring by-elections in both. In particular, Mayor Park Won-soon of Seoul, a civil rights lawyer who had vocal in cases of sexual abuse, committed suicide out of shame at his own involvement in sexual misconduct. The Democratic Party of Korea, led by then presidential hopeful Lee Nak-yeon, broke with its own promise to not release candidates for a by-election if the vacancy was caused by its one of its own politician’s misconduct. The stench of hypocrisy angered many, especially younger and female voters.
By that time, the dominant narratives of 2020 had already turned against the ruling party. The government’s COVID policy went from being a successful, futuristic operation in the eyes of the public to being a failure (with the main shortcoming being South Korea’s initial shortages of vaccines). Further failures in the realm of real estate policy and a land speculation scandal revolving around the Korea Land and Housing Corporation (LH) incensed voters already suffering from fatigue with the government. While female voters balked at voting for a party disgraced by sexual scandals, young male voters (known colloquially as the 이대남 or ‘males in their twenties’ cohort) rode a wave of anti-government (and also anti-feminist) sentiment against the liberal ruling party. Nearly three quarters of young Korean men in their twenties voted for the conservative People’s Power Party candidate Oh Se-hoon in the Seoul by-election held in April 2021. Young women on the other hand split nearly even, with a small but notable portion going to female fringe party candidates. Young voters also went for the conservative candidate Park Hyeong-joon in Busan. Just a year after the liberals’ victory in the legislative elections, the conservatives swept all forty-one districts in Seoul and Busan.
Now, a year later, the situation is now essentially back to square one. Yoon, as the PPP candidate, initially held a lead, which makes sense in light of the fact that a majority still supports ‘punishing the government’ over rewarding it with a second term. But that initial lead was attenuated by personal scandals related to Yoon’s mother-in-law and wife, the latter having fabricated her own resume to gain employment opportunities. Young conservative voters who had preferred his primary opponent, Hong Jun-pyo, began to smell the stench of two things they hate most: hypocrisy and incompetence. Lee had made a point to paint Yoon as a candidate clueless to current issues, with quiz-style debate questions pertaining to the RE-100 global initiative and the EU Taxonomy on sustainable regulatory activities. Factoring in Lee Jae-myung’s own personal scandals (pertaining to Daejang-dong, which Lee’s supporters conversely see as a scandal of Yoon’s conduct as a prosecutor, and a famous Korean actress) and his family woes (his son’s illegal gambling, a murderer nephew, and his wife’s inappropriate use of government funds), one can see how Koreans have been left with a conundrum regarding who to choose as their next leader. As can be expected, the polls have been very tight over the past few months, shrouding the expected final result in mystery.
The ‘Ahn’ Factor
Third-party conservative-leaning candidate Ahn Cheol-soo, a tech CEO and professor-turned-politician (who was originally trained as a Ph.D holding doctor), threw a wrench into the election a few days ago by dropping out of the race. His exit and endorsement of Yoon Suk-yeol before early voting booths had even opened has shifted the race in ways that are interpreted to be advantageous to Yoon. Ahn’s credentials amongst centrists, undecideds, and younger voters may increase the conservative candidate’s ability to appeal to the Korean mainstream, to moderate his image, and to widen a big tent political alliance until election day.
I believe that this political maneuvering might actually be a strategic one that could actually benefit Ahn’s political standing, rather than weaken it. In handing over the entire opposition field to the PPP for the second time (he did so once during last year’s mayoral by-election in Seoul), Ahn is positioning himself to gain the most from a disadvantageous situation. By sacrificing the eight percent of so (some polls had him at double digits) of meaningless vote in the actual election poll, Ahn is positioning himself to become a kingmaker for Yoon, in a fashion that guarantees a situation in which an indebted PPP owes a massive IOU to Ahn. It will be hard to ignore Ahn and his ideas if Yoon does indeed win tomorrow (in which case Ahn will have contributed to an opposition sweep of the Seoul mayoralty and the Blue House). Two decades ago, in the 2002 election, major third candidate Chung Mong-joon, made a critical endorsement of Roh Moo-hyun, who defeated a strong conservative candidate in Lee Hoi-chang (Chung eventually withdrew his endorsement in the final hours of the campaign after the result was practically settled). By going all the way with Yoon Suk-yeol and the PPP, Ahn, who had recently suggested that he would rather “cut off his own fingers” rather than vote for Yoon, is paving the way for the conservative opposition victory he wants while securing his historical place in that victory.
Of course, a Lee Jae-myung victory, fueled by his enthusiastic core of hardened supporters, might still come about. Lee has touted a united front with minor candidate Kim Dong-yeon in the past week. However, given the fact that Kim maintained a negligible presence in the polls, this endorsement means much less in the grand scheme of things when compared with the Ahn shocker. In addition, Shim Sang-jeong, the left-wing female candidate from the minor Justice Party, remains on the ballot as an active candidate and might siphon votes from Lee. It is in this context that Lee Jun-suk, the young maverick leader of the PPP, now predicts a percentage of the vote for Yoon that might surpass Park Geun-hye’s 51.6% share in 2012. As a majority mandate for a presidential candidate is considered the unicorn of South Korean elections, this projection represents the high point of expectations for Yoon.
Regarding the electoral outlook for tomorrow, I will be keeping an eye out for the 부울경 (i.e. the Busan, Ulsan, South Gyeongsang Province) region, a major conservative-leaning swing area which was won by Moon Jae-in in 2017 but which has swung sharply to the conservatives in recent years. The Hoseo region (i.e. North and South Chungcheong Province, Daejeon, and Sejong Special City) is a classic swing area which featured a strong independent streak, having supported both conservative and liberal parties in the past as well as homegrown politicians such as Kim Jong-pil and several homegrown regional parties.
The PPP is bullish regarding its electoral fortunes in liberal Honam (i.e. North and South Jeolla Provinces plus Gwangju), touting some cross-over appeal. It will be interesting to see whether Lee Jae-myung can replicate a typical two party horserace situation in Honam, which would usually mean a ninety-percent-plus sweep for the liberal candidate (achieved most recently by Moon Jae-in in 2012). Finally, the Sudogwon (lit. capital area) with populous Gyeonggi Province (Lee’s political home base) and the capital Seoul (which voted decisively for the conservatives last year) will be the deciding factor of the election. This is due to the Sudogwon’s sheer population, which constitutes half of the population of the entire country. The popular vote decides the president here in South Korea and margins in these important swing areas (as well as in the traditional liberal and conservative bastions of the Honam and Yeongnam regions respectively) will decide the fate of election night 2022.
Some Implications for the Future
One thing that election watchers on both sides of the aisle need to consider is the fact that legislative elections and the presidential election are held separately in Korea. This is a blow to Yoon Suk-yeol, who might be elected only to face a National Assembly controlled overwhelmingly by the opposite party. Yoon has been touting his vision to unite the country, and his rhetoric must be demonstrably fulfilled in deeds in his prospective dealings with a Democratic-controlled assembly. This 여소야대 (lit. small government, large opposition) situation is paralleled by the current situation in the Seoul municipal government, in which a conservative mayor is hampered by the presence of the Seoul Metropolitan Council (i.e. the city assembly), which is currently almost-exclusively made up of governing party members. Lee Jae-myung, on the other hand, does not have this legislative handicap, meaning that big-ticket liberal priorities might have a unified and newly strengthened mandate to become reality.
More immediately, however, political revenge has come up as a campaign topic. The unpopularity of the South Korean presidency, the relative vindictiveness of its politics, and the flaws exhibited by many politicians encourage an environment marked by political purges and the disgracing of ex-presidents. Where Moon Jae-in will fit in this tapestry of ex-presidents might depend on the next occupant of the Blue House and his political motives.
This election also has international implications. Both candidates have made contributions to the Foreign Affairs magazine, with both articles covering a variety of topics pertaining to the Quad alliance, the THAAD missile system, the so-called ‘three no’s’ policy, bilateral relations with Japan, inter-Korean dialogue, OPCON, “strategic ambiguity”, and other critical foreign policy issues. I will probably write about the two candidates’ contributions and their foreign policy visions in more detail later.
As for now, I will be eagerly waiting to enjoy a particularly exciting, and high stakes, election night in South Korea.