South Korea at a Crossroads

South Korea is at a crossroads. After nearly a decade of conservative rule, the stage appears set for the return of a liberal government. An influence-peddling and corruption scandal mobilized millions of anti-government protesters and led eventually to the legislature’s impeachment of President Park Geun-hye. Two former presidential aides have been arrested and prosecutors are investigating the vice chairman of the electronics conglomerate Samsung, Lee Jay-yong, on bribery and embezzlement charges related to the scandal. Amidst the fallout, support for the president has plummeted and the ruling Saenuri Party has split.

Scandal engulfed the domestic political scene after the revelation last October of evidence that showed Park had been consulting a longtime family friend and private citizen, Choi Soon-sil, on confidential affairs of state. Subsequent investigations found evidence that Choi, in cooperation with presidential staff and possibly the president, had extorted more than $50 million from South Korean conglomerates. Park was impeached on December 6, 2016 with 234 members of the 300-member National Assembly casting their votes in favor of the motion. With Park relieved from her official responsibilities as head of state while the impeachment motion is considered by the Constitutional Court, Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn is acting president until a decision is rendered.

The Constitutional Court has until June to decide whether to uphold the motion and remove the president, or strike it down and have Park reinstated. If the Court votes in the affirmative, snap elections must be held within 60 days. This means an early presidential election. If she is reinstated, Park will limp to the conclusion of her five-year term as a discredited lame duck, and the presidential election will be held on December 20, as originally scheduled. Presidents in South Korea are limited to one term, so there was never any consideration of a reelection campaign.

There is strong pressure from opposition lawmakers and civic groups for the Constitutional Court to issue its ruling before March 13. On that day, Judge Lee Jungmi’s term is up. She is the acting president of the Constitutional Court, and the only woman on the bench. More pertinent to the case, she is seen as a supporter of the impeachment motion. One judge already retired in January. If Judge Lee retires then that leaves seven judges, among which only two need to vote “no” for Park to be reinstated. A shorter bench, in other words, benefits Park. It is unlikely that any additional judges will be appointed during the impeachment trial.

Since impeachment hearings began in January, Park has refused to testify, in part at least due to the overwhelming media attention the issue is getting. A lawyer for the president has indicated that she doesn’t intend to attend court hearings, which she is in her rights to do. The Court is legally permitted to carry on without her. All the judges on the bench are conservative-era appointees, although this factor may not be as important as it seems. Legal experts believe that the impeachment case is strong and the motion likely to be upheld. Reasonable though this belief may be, it is ultimately speculative. Whether the Court believes the president’s actions warrant her removal remains an open question.

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As the Court deliberates, South Korea is in a holding pattern. But some suggest something more serious: South Korea stymied and imperiled by political instability. The democratic Sixth Republic – South Korea today – is young by comparative standards. If 1987 is taken as the starting point, then democracy is only 29 years old in the country. Anyone born before 1962 would have been 18 or older at the time of the last military coup (1979). Given these facts, one could be forgiven for seeing the situation in the extreme.

It is important, however, to distinguish between political uncertainty and political instability. These are qualitatively different situations. Political instability implies an element of volatility and insecurity. South Korea is going through a period of political uncertainty as political actors and organizations, especially presidential hopefuls and political parties, adjust to the post-impeachment political environment. The system itself isn’t under siege. Two simple and relevant points can be made about the workings of South Korea’s political system and its political culture to corroborate this claim.

First, the system worked, or is working. After weeks of peaceful anti-Park protests and demands by lawmakers from both sides of the political aisle that action against the president be taken, the National Assembly overwhelmingly voted in favor of impeachment. The vote was peaceful and boring (as voting ought to be). The action taken by the National Assembly is conclusive proof that one branch of government in South Korea is capable of checking the other. With the Constitutional Court now deliberating, another branch of government is fulfilling its designated, constitutional role.

There were, to be sure, actions taken by Park or her administration over the course of the five-year term that were not encouraging, including the blacklisting of dissident artists and a refusal to have candid interactions with the press. But the executive branch of the Korean government is not acting in a way that would indicate South Korea’s democracy is under any threat. Had the executive branch rejected the impeachment vote outcome, genuine political instability would have ensued and credit would be due to those who have been calling South Korea a non-democratic state. That didn’t happen, and while it still could at the ruling stage, it is highly unlikely. Park made it quite clear in her public addresses that she would respect the wishes of the National Assembly as to what should be done. That she is refusing to participate in hearings isn’t likely to help her image as an aloof president, but it is not undermining the democratic process currently underway.

Second, the hundreds of thousands who rallied in central Seoul and across the country for impeachment and those who continue to rally on the weekends in support of the motion being upheld indicates interest in and support for South Korean democracy. The foundation of any viable democratic system is a supportive political culture. Cross-national data show resolute support for democracy is lower in South Korea than elsewhere, but the same data also indicates that young South Koreans are not losing faith in their democratic system. This is notable because research into support for democracy in the United States and Europe suggests that processes of democratic deconsolidation are underway; support for democracy, in other words, is waning. That doesn’t seem to be the case in South Korea.

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In a February report, the media outlet JTBC observed that the current arrangement of South Korea’s party system resembles that of the post-1987 situation: there were four parties then, and there are four parties now. The first democratically elected president of the Sixth Republic, President Roh Tae-woo, led the Democratic Justice Party. He and his party were challenged by three opposition parties: Kim Jong-pil’s New Democratic-Republican Party, Kim Yong-sam’s Reunification Democratic Party, and Kim Dae-jung’s Party for Peace and Democracy.

In January 1990, then-President Roh brokered a three-party merger, or “grand conservative coalition” as he called it. The coalition included Kim Jong-pil and Kim Yong-sam – so-called “centrist democrats.” Notably, it excluded long-time democratic activist Kim Dae-jung and his Party for Peace and Democracy. It provided Roh’s new Democratic Liberal Party an overwhelming majority in the National Assembly.

The obvious implication of JTBC making a reference to this period is that they see the formation of another coalition on the horizon.

Eighteen days after Park’s impeachment, the Righteous Party, or Bareun Party, was created. It was formed by a group of 29 lawmakers defecting from the ruling Saenuri Party (the new party went by the name of Conservative New Party for Reform until early January). These defectors, who numbered 32 as of this writing, are conservative lawmakers affiliated with the so-called anti-Park faction. Their defections and the start of a new conservative party means the beginning of the end for the ruling conservative party.

The Choi scandal precipitated the Saenuri Party’s demise. In a December Gallup Korea poll that measured support for political parties, Saenuri Party, which has since renamed itself the Liberty Korea Party, received a meager 15 percent of the total responses. Until then, the ruling party had maintained a comfortable lead over the main opposition, the Minjoo Party. The same poll put Minjoo at 40 percent, equal to the level of support Saenuri enjoyed at the beginning of the year. Even the 60s+ age cohorts, which showed consistently high levels of support for most of Park’s presidency, polled at only 30 percent.

It is clear that the Minjoo Party has benefitted most from the scandal fallout. A Gallup Korea poll in mid-February showed Minjoo maintaining 40 percent support among the South Korean electorate, with Liberty Korea (still known as Saenuri at the time of the poll) at 13 percent and the Righteous Party at 7 percent. What’s more, Minjoo is currently the most powerful political party in the legislature; with 121 of the 300 total seats in the National Assembly, they have a plurality.

Interestingly, South Korea’s party system is currently defined by four parties (three opposition parties and one ruling). There is a fifth, the Justice Party, but they are an uninfluential minor party with fewer than 10 seats. A curious condition for a party system typically defined by two main parties, this arrangement is not likely to persist. It is in the best interest of those parties who share similar political goals or are ideologically similar to unite and throw their support behind a single candidate. This is what Righteous Party lawmakers might have been hoping for when former UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon returned to South Korea after completing his post at the UN and indicated that he would run for president. It was a highly anticipated move, making his sudden withdrawal all the more surprising.

A self-described “progressive conservative,” Ban would have been the incontestable conservative successor. What party would he have joined? It was rumored that he was considering the Righteous Party, and would have joined after the Court settled the impeachment question. This would have undoubtedly reinvigorated the conservative base. There was even talk of a Righteous Party merger with the center-left People’s Party, whose marquee members include a former presidential hopeful and successful entrepreneur, Ahn Cheol-soo. It would have been a formidable alliance.

However, the prospects of a reinvigorated conservative party, or an interesting left-right party merger, died when Ban announced that he wouldn’t be running for president. Citing a media smear campaign perpetrated against him and his family as one of the reasons for backing out, Ban’s unexpected exit from the world of politics leaves the conservatives without a clear leader and, for the time being, South Korea with a clear presidential front-runner: Moon Jae-in of the Minjoo Party.

The Democratic Party’s candidate for president in 2012, Moon is the face of the liberal party establishment. A long-time defender of the “Roh (Moo-hyun) line” within the left, Moon supports engagement with North Korea, has been an outspoken skeptic of the ROK-U.S. alliance, and has voiced opposition to the deployment of the U.S. Army’s anti-ballistic missile system, the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), to the Korean peninsula. With a sizeable lead in the polls over the conservative’s most popular politician – prime minister and acting president Hwang Kyo-ahn – the only other viable challenger to Moon as this point is the liberal governor of South Chungcheong Province, Ahn Hee-jung.

With a conservative-liberal coalition in mind, Ahn may prove capable of making a presidential push, especially if he doesn’t run for the main liberal party nomination. His own campaign strategist has admitted the governor’s election strategy is to move center-right, with the hope of capturing support from moderate conservatives and possibly even forming a coalition with the ruling Liberty Korea Party. Willing to support party mergers, something Moon has recently but not unequivocally opposed, Ahn will either form a coalition of Park supporters and progressive conservatives and challenge Moon, or remain within the Minjoo Party and lose out to Moon’s popularity and the leftist bias within the Minjoo Party, which is more likely to back a leftist over a progressive-centrist.

While there have been several interesting political developments since the impeachment vote, the outcome is far from clear. There are too many unknown variables, chief among them the fate of Park Geun-hye. A change in the domestic political conditions, which will occur whether Park is removed or reinstated, could thrust a once unpopular or obscure candidate to national popularity. Seongnam mayor Lee Jae-myung was propelled into the spotlight in December, when his approval rating as a presidential candidate spiked to the mid-teens. A relatively unknown figure until recently, Lee is seen as a political outsider and has framed himself as “South Korea’s Bernie Sanders.” Support for Lee as a presidential candidate has decreased since December, but Lee, and figures like him, should not be ruled out.

What is clear under the current political conditions is that South Korean liberals (left-wing or center-left) will benefit from an election that happens earlier rather than later. Conservatives are reeling from the scandal- and impeachment-driven split in their ranks, and with Ban’s departure from the political scene, it is unclear who will succeed him as the conservative torchbearer. With hundreds of thousands of people still braving the winter cold to take part in weekly anti-Park, pro-impeachment rallies, and the Minjoo Party’s popularity rising, it is hard not to see this as the liberals’ election to lose. But liberals have had a hard time preventing intraparty factionalism from spilling out into the open. For instance, leaders from the liberal party’s regional base (Honam, or the southwestern provinces) are currently at odds with Moon Jae-in. If Ahn Hee-jung forms a centrist coalition, he will put Moon in a position not dissimilar to the one faced by Kim Dae-jung decades ago. The “three-party merger” took the carpet out from underneath Kim’s feet. A centrist coalition today would do the same to Moon.

Indeed, it is highly unlikely that four parties will be in play once election season gets officially underway. As a two-party system, there is a strong incentive for coalition building under current conditions. With the Liberty Korea Party’s long-term viability doubtful, its members are likely to seek ideological compromise for political gain. The Righteous Party may do just the same. The most obvious, and ideologically coherent, merger would be between the Minjoo Party and the People’s Party; this would build a coalition of lawmakers similar to the one that constituted the Democratic Party for the 2012 election. Proposals suggesting such an alliance have been floated, but to no avail.

It’s worth recalling that the People’s Party was formed by lawmakers who defected from the main opposition liberal party, partly out of ideological differences: members of the People’s Party carry on the so-called “Kim (Dae-jung) line,” whereas Minjoo is more varied but has a strong pro-Roh element. It’s sometimes unclear what, exactly, the difference between a pro-Roh/pro-Kim party is, but legacies play an important role in South Korean party politics. What’s more, the People’s Party, despite its centrist label, is effectively a regional party dominated by political heavyweights hailing from the southwest. What alliances will be brokered between warring factions, competing parties, and big personalities is yet to be seen. There probably won’t be any major moves until after the Constitutional Court resolves the impeachment issue.

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Some have expressed concern regarding the effects the political uncertainty prevailing in South Korea might have on inter-Korean relations and the country’s alliance coordination, particularly the ROK-U.S. alliance. Is there any basis to this concern?

Given the current state of inter-Korean relations, it is hard to imagine South Korea’s domestic politics having any measurable effect. Acting president Hwang Kyo-ahn has said he is committed to maintaining the status quo, and he is more than capable of doing just that.

North-South relations have been reeling since the sinking of the Cheonan navy corvette and the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island in 2010. Following the Cheonan sinking, then-President Lee Myung-bak passed the May 24 Measures, which effectively halted all trade and economic interaction between North and South Korea, except for that taking place at the jointly run Kaesong Industrial Complex. Operations at the industrial complex were eventually suspended, too, by the Park administration in response to a rocket test, which was determined by Seoul to be a disguised ballistic missile test. The rocket launch followed North Korea’s fourth nuclear test, which took place in January of the same year.

The only foreseeable impact that the current situation can have on North-South relations would be to encourage conservatives to whip up the “Northern Wind.” This is a political tactic employed by conservatives who wish to exploit the security situation on the peninsula – South Koreans’ fears of communism and North Korean aggression – for political gain. It has many variations, at least one of which suggests that conservative governments deliberately provoke North Korea in order to make electoral gains. Whether conservatives actually pursue this tactic, or are even capable of such a feat, is debatable. Many experts reckon the Northern Wind doesn’t have any explanatory value, while others suggest it’s simply another way to refer to conservatives playing the security card during elections. It is generally understood that conservatives are “tough on security” and progressives somewhat less so, and it is this sentiment that conservative lawmakers and political strategist seek to leverage. One of the more discussed example of a security issue related to North Korea being exploited by conservatives for electoral gain is the 1996 DMZ protest, when South Korea made known to the public that North Korea had declared it would no longer cooperate in maintaining the demilitarized zone. The crisis, which occurred just before the general election, is understood as having cost the liberal opposition seats in the National Assembly.

Absent a plausible imminent threat, the only option available to conservatives is to simply frame liberals as “soft on security.” The extreme version of this strategy involves the labeling of the opposition as “pro-North” (chinbuk). Anti-communism runs deep in South Korea, and accusations of being pro-North or unconcerned with the sovereign integrity of the Republic can win political points. Whether they can score enough points to matter is an open question, and liberals are acutely aware of this political vulnerability. Those most likely to respond to pro-North messaging strategies are among the already converted. The diehard Park supporters and counter-protesters calling for Park’s reinstallment are also those who think her impeachment puts the country at a great security risk. Mainstream conservatives are likely to drum up the importance of security, especially the threat of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal, as they find a way to mend the rift that split the ruling party and bounce back in the polls. 

Regarding alliance coordination, particularly the ROK-U.S. alliance, the only questionable variable in play is THAAD, an issue that, as of now, appears settled: the United States will deploy the anti-ballistic missile system sometime in 2017 and South Korea supports this. It is possible that a liberal government would seek to renegotiate the terms of THAAD deployment, or perhaps even block its deployment altogether, but that seems unlikely at this stage. If Lee Jae-myung emerges as the front-runner, then one has reason to consider the possibility, but any mainstream liberal is less likely to spend political capital to reconsider a done deal. In fact, Moon said in a January interview that THAAD deployment would proceed under his administration, reiterating a point he made in his book released in December of last year.

There is no indication that the presidential scandal and subsequent impeachment has undermined or otherwise affected South Korea’s alliance coordination with the United States. It will, however, throw a wrench in trilateral talks with Beijing and Tokyo and complicate the implementation of a new ROK-Japan intelligence sharing agreement.

If anything is perceived to be a threat to the U.S.-led alliance system in Northeast Asia, it is the election of Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency. However, despite saying he would reconsider the conditions of the ROK-U.S. and Japan-U.S. alliances, especially with regards to cost sharing, Trump has not yet indicated he will actually back up his campaign talk with executive action. In fact, he has taken steps to reassure alliance partners South Korea and Japan that he supports the status quo.

Following his confirmation, the new Secretary of Defense James Mattis travelled to Seoul to meet with top-level officials. During his stay, he reassured those he met, including acting president Hwang, that the goal of the United States is to strengthen its alliance with South Korea. He articulated a similar theme in Japan, a message corroborated by Trump when he and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe met in Florida at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in early February. The North Korean missile launch, which took place during the meeting, was condemned by both Japan and the United States. Trump’s senior policy adviser, Stephen Miller, commented in an ABC interview that the United States is committed to standing by its allies “to address the North Korean menace.” Things may change when a South Korean new government takes power this summer or at the beginning of next year, but for now there is no reason to believe any significant departures from the status quo will be pursued.

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What are the possible long-term effects of the political scandal? There are competing assessments. One perspective is that there won’t be any long-term effects, or that whatever effects are felt in the short-term will subside over time. From this point of view, Park didn’t behave all that differently from her predecessors. There isn’t a presidential administration in South Korea that hasn’t been charged with some form of corruption or wrong-doing. Even Kim Dae-jung, whose legacy as a peace and democracy activist remains intact, was accused of paying off North Korea for a landmark June 2000 North-South summit in Pyongyang, among other accusations. Over time, then, people will forget or at least become indifferent to the perceived shortcomings of Park’s presidency. Whether this is the case may hinge on whether the Court decides to have Park removed from office.

A competing position is that Park’s impeachment, and the overall incompetency of her administration, means the chance of long-term implications is high, even if we don’t yet know exactly what these implications are. Does the impeachment result in a confidence deficit for the government? After all, a president has never been removed from office by legal means over the course of the country’s history (1948-present). Data which track confidence in the government over time show a modest overall increase since the early 1990s. Will we see a reversal of this trend? It is difficult to give an objective overview during an impeachment trial, but it would be reasonable to think the current scandal will diminish trust and confidence in the national government.

Indeed, what is probably even more damning than the Choi scandal was Park’s handling of the 2014 Sewol Ferry disaster, an incident that beleaguered her administration. The MV Sewol, carrying mostly middle school students, capsized en route to Jeju Island from a port at Incheon. Of the 476 people on board, 295 died. The sinking is an emotionally charged issue, to be sure, but there are a lot of legitimate questions left unanswered regarding the Park administration’s handling of the tragedy, both while it was occurring and in its sobering aftermath. In fact, it was the objective of the Constitutional Court’s first impeachment hearing to seek answers on this very issue, specifically: where was Park in the immediate hours of the ferry’s sinking? Speculation runs amok on this point, but it is believed that Park was absent or unavailable at the time. Prior to the ferry’s sinking Park’s approval rating was around 70 percent, it dropped to 40 percent after. To many, the handling of the Sewol disaster is representative of the administration overall: ineffectual at best, negligent at worst.

Could the impeachment process serve as the catalyst that sparks the reform of South Korea’s political system? Political scientists are clear in their judgment of presidential systems: they are inherently unstable. There is too much power vested in the executive branch and the division of power encourages extreme partisanship and leads to legislative deadlock. Modest reform proposals suggest the president should serve two terms, thus adding an incentive to govern better, especially in the first term. More comprehensive proposals call for an overhaul of the system: a transition to a parliamentary system, thereby doing away entirely with the executive branch. Proposed before without serious consideration, some variation of these proposals may be seriously contemplated in the near future.

Contrary to expectation, it is possible that the scandal has a net-positive effect. Seeing the country’s judicial and legislative branches of government check the excesses of the executive could, in theory at least, lead to more favorable opinions of the country’s government overall, specifically the Court and the National Assembly. Furthermore, cross-generational participation in anti-Park protests might create an enduring interest in political participation that carries throughout the life-cycle, further improving a civic culture already supportive of democracy. People have already begun to speak of a Sewol generation. What this generation thinks and wants politically is still unclear. But it’s not hard to imagine a structural break with previous generations having taken place sometime during the Park administration.

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In the end, what will the scandal mean for the Park family legacy and the future of South Korea? Park Geun-hye’s father, the dictator Park Chung-hee, has a conflicted but enduring legacy. He is credited with overseeing South Korea’s rapid industrialization, which laid the foundations of national strength and prosperity. Politically oppressive, he is also associated with the abrogation of political rights and brutal crackdowns on political dissenters. But as nation- and state-builder in the early years of the Republic, he garners the respect, even if begrudgingly so, of the populace. Park Geun-hye hasn't anything substantive to show for her time as president, other than an impeachment motion and a divided political system. The dust has yet to settle and Park has yet to step down from her position, but South Koreans are approaching a point where they can choose a different path for the country. For many, this moment is long overdue.