On April 10, South Korea held elections for members of the 22nd National Assembly, with the leading opposition Democratic Party retaining its majority in parliament.
The final outcome is as follows:
The total score was thus 187:108 in favor of the Democratic camp. The media described the election outcome as a confident and crushing victory for the opposition, but when compared to the 2020 election, where the score was 180:103 in favor of the Conservatives, the Democrats rather maintained their position, and even lost a little without Cho Kuk. Rather, the Conservatives failed to deprive the Democrats of a qualified majority of half of the mandates, and the Democrats did not gain two-thirds, after which they could have impeached the president. As they say, ‘they held their ground.’
Can the election have an “aftertaste that turns into civil unrest”? At the time the author is writing these lines, neither the president and his entourage, nor the leadership of the Conservative Party, are trying to raise the topic of election interference or electoral irregularities.
What’s behind this election outcome?
What’s behind the Democrats’ victory is the question, because in 2020 Moon’s apparent victory in the war against the coronavirus (or rather, the first wave of four) coincided with blatantly failed strategic planning by the then-conservative leadership led by Hwang Kyo-ahn.
The first reason for the Democrats’ victory was the protest factor and President Yoon Suk-yeol’s low approval rating, which has been hovering around 30-40% for the past year. The society remains highly divided, and the elections were perceived as a vote of (no) confidence in the president’s course.
The protest factor, meanwhile, outweighed a number of weights on the Democrats’ scale, including Lee Jae-myung’s own odious reputation and a number of unsavory scandals involving his associates. And the fact that the number of lawmakers with criminal records was much higher for the Democrats than for the Conservatives. And the way in which the Democrats strengthened ‘party unity’ by turning the party into a support club for Lee Jae-myung. All of this has been overshadowed.
Especially since Yoon Suk-yeol, like Park Geun-hye, did not have his own media: the well-known English-language newspaper, the Korea Times, was more likely to play into Lee Jung-seok’s hands, and there were also plenty of scandals that hurt the government.
The first and longest-running scandal concerns the way to treat the allegation that First Lady Kim Keon-hee received a luxury Christian Dior bag worth about 3 million won ($2,200) as a gift in September 2022. The pastor who handed it to her and was considered a family friend secretly filmed her taking the bag with a camera hidden in his watch.
Another potential electoral factor is the public reaction to strikes by resident doctors and trainees protesting the government’s plans to increase enrollment in medical schools.
Another scandal involved former Minister of Defense Lee Jong-sup, who was sent as ambassador to Australia even though he was being held as a possible figure in an investigation into the death of a marine who had died in a flood. Lee’s mission abroad was perceived by the opposition and the media as ‘the authorities are covering up’. Although Lee eventually resigned, the scandal left a bitter aftertaste.
The second factor is that the leaders of the Democratic camp were........