South Korea’s Political Pendulum Swings Again

South Korea held by-elections for mayoral posts in Seoul, the capital, and Busan, the country’s second largest city, on April 7. Oh Se-hoon and Park Hyung-Joon from the conservative People Power Party (PPP) won landslide victories. They will now serve the remaining 15 months of the previous mayors’ terms, until the regular cycle of local elections is restored.

In South Korea, by-elections held before general or presidential elections are regarded as bellwethers. Presidential elections will be held on March 9, 2022. In a country where presidents can serve only a single five-year term, a defeat by the president’s party in such by-elections accelerates the lame-duck period.

The defeat in both mayoral contests in Seoul and Busan is particularly humiliating for the ruling Democratic Party (DP). The two positions were made vacant by accusations of sexual harassment brought against the then-incumbents, both members of the DP, in 2020. While former Busan Mayor Oh Geo-don stepped down from his position, Park Won-soon, the former mayor of Seoul, took his own life in July last year after a former secretary accused him of sexual harassment. The fallout from the dual scandals split South Korean society. Park has been especially popular, owing to his successful urban reform agenda.

The ruling party and the government were themselves divided. Those trying to plow ahead on the Democratic Party’s agenda saw the scandals as an opposition plot to hamper the government. Others prioritized their beliefs in gender equality and thus distanced themselves from the actions and the image of the two mayors. Young voters, especially young women in their 20s, did not perceive such episodes as an opposition plot seeking to delegitimize the ruling party’s political and moral image, but as testament to still-pervasive problems of gender inequality in South Korea.

The fall of the mayors in South Korea’s two main cities required by-elections. A scandal-ridden campaign followed.

Under Democratic Party internal regulations introduced in 2015 by current President Moon Jae-in, then leader of the party, it committed to not fielding candidates in by-elections sparked by the wrongdoings of, or corruption allegations against, their own party members. However, the internal regulation was not applied to the 2021 by-elections, sparking accusations of hypocrisy from the opposition when the DP fronted candidates.

Agenda and Issues

Moon’s DP had won landslide victories in three successive elections: the presidential elections in May 2017, local elections in June 2018, and the general elections in April 2020. The 2020 elections were dominated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the outcome was shaped by perceptions of the Moon administration’s effective handling of the crisis. But South Korean voters’ support for Moon has not been sustained. Leading into the by-elections, recent surveys showed that public support for Moon’s governing performance had plummeted to 33.4 percent in early April, down from an already low 39.3 percent in early February.

Although in early March polls had the DP candidate ahead in Seoul, a combination of corruption scandals tied to the ruling party and, equally important, a coalition pact between the main opposition candidates eventually turned the tables. PPP candidate Oh Se-hoon agreed to govern the city together with Ahn Cheol-soo, head of the smaller opposition People’s Party,  for the remaining 15 months of the mayor’s mandate. The coalition pact revolved very simply around punishing the current government for its perceived incompetence and a string of corruption scandals. The ruling DP, for its part, called on the public to guarantee government stability and support its handling of the pandemic crisis and its economic policies.

In the background was the pandemic, which continues to affect both the daily lives of ordinary Koreans and the economy. Small shop owners were especially negatively affected. Government initiatives to increase taxes for property owners did not help secure support across society. To the contrary, property prices soared, with wealthy property owners and landlords in prime locations seeing their property value double or triple against a backdrop of mounting job losses. The public’s disillusionment over the government’s performance during the pandemic – in stark contrast with strong support throughout 2020 – was compounded by an endless string of scandals.

The months preceding the by-elections were dominated by numerous corruption revelations. Particularly damning for the ruling party were those cases where some civil servants working for the state housing company, Korea Land and Housing Corp. (LH), used inside information to engage in land speculation, which resulted in huge profits for themselves. The two opposition candidates, Oh Se-hoon and Park Hyung-joon, were also involved in land speculation scandals themselves, but the public directed their anger over the doubling of property prices and the spike in rents in Seoul and Busan against the national government, sending a strong warning to the incumbent party before the March 2022 presidential elections.

The land speculation fiasco was simply the latest in an increasingly long list of scandals implicating officials close to the president in recent years. Particularly noteworthy was the case of former Minister of Justice Cho Kuk. In a society divided by privilege more than income and increasingly polarized in economic and political terms, the scandal over his daughter’s medical school acceptance fueled widespread societal frustration and discontent. For many young people in South Korea the issue is less one of progressives versus conservatives and more about the lack of opportunities in education and employment for the many versus the privilege of the very few. The situation has been depicted in terms of class cleavage between “clay spoons and gold spoons” in what is regarded as a modern day version of the class-based society of Joseon (the old name of Korea): a 21st century Hell Joseon.

Political conflicts and corruption scandals eventually overlapped, as in the case of the conflict over judicial reform, with efforts driven by Cho Kuk and later Choo Mi-ae, the previous ministers of justice, who were opposed by former Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-youl. There were constant leaks of confidential information and exchanges of accusations of corruption between the two sides.

By-Election Results

When the results were in, Oh Se-hoon won 57.5 percent of the votes in Seoul and Park Hyung-joon gained 62.67 percent in Busan. At 55.4 percent, voter turnout was the highest ever for by-elections. Oh won every electoral district in Seoul, as did Park in Busan.

The elections restated the importance of coalition-building in South Korean politics as a critical tool to win elections. Building an electoral coalition between the People Power Party (PPP) and Ahn Cheol-soo’s People’s Party (PP) was a crucial strategy for the opposition. Oh, a former mayor in Seoul under Lee Myung-bak administration and Ahn consolidated opposition support against the ruling DP’s candidate Park Young-sun, a former MP and also former minister of SMEs and Start-ups under the current government.

There was also widespread cynicism across society, with stories about DP and PPP candidates wearing expensive clothing and pricy Italian Ferragamo shoes in the past attracting backlash from the public. It also served to take attention away from the land speculation scandal of Oh Se-hoon’s in-laws.

Negative campaigns are nothing new in South Korea. And neither are populistic campaigns built on a strong virtuous “us” versus a corrupt “them” dichotomy. During the TV debate among the candidates for by-elections in February, PP leader Ahn Cheol-soo openly suggested that LGBTQ parades be moved to a back alley in Seoul, rather than using the main square. His comments did not endear him to voters, especially young ones, that support the abolition of laws discriminating against sexual minorities.

Voting behavior in South Korea has traditionally split along regional, ideological, generational, and wealth divides. This time, though, a clear gender divide has also emerged, especially among young voters in their 20s. Male voters supported the opposition PPP candidates in Seoul and Busan, while female voters split between the ruling DP and small minority parties. About 15 percent of female voters in their 20s voted for minority party candidates such as Shin Ji-hye from the Basic Income Party, Oh Tae-yang from the Future Party (advocating support for sexual minorities), and other candidates such as Kim Jin-a, Song Myeong-sook, and Shin Ji-ye, campaigning on gender equality platforms in Seoul.

The growing electoral salience of the gender divide and the way in which this intersects with generational differences was especially evident in this electoral round. Despite the fact that young adults in their 20s and 30s make up 16.3 percent and 16.4 percent, respectively, of potential voters, males above the age of 50 are over-represented in the national assembly. The political class is not an accurate mirror of Korean society, and this mismatch has become a clear issue and battleground in electoral campaigns. Politics in South Korea is heavily gendered.

In a breath of fresh air compared to earlier campaigns, smaller parties and non-party affiliated candidates started to openly and confidently campaign in support of sexual minorities, foreign residents, disabled people, and religious freedom. Female campaigners were especially active and vocal during this past campaign. Their performance at the ballot box was disappointing, however; in the end, minority party candidates mostly received less than 1 percent of the vote.

Local and by-elections are also meaningful for foreign residents as they have received voting rights since 2006. In Seoul about 42,246 foreign residents could vote in the by-elections in 2021. South Korea is one of 45 countries which allow foreign residents to vote in local polls, and among the leading countries in Asia to introduce such laws.

Broader Implications

The electoral victories showed the revival of the “old boys” of the conservative Lee Myong-bak administration. Oh Se-hoon served as Seoul mayor and Park Hyung-joon worked as a senior secretary of political affairs during the Lee administration (2008-2013). They both were involved in corruption scandals over negative electoral campaigns back then.

The crushing defeat in the by-elections will accelerate President Moon Jae-in’s descent into his lame duck period. At the same time, the two newly-elected mayors will not be able to introduce any changes as the local city councils are filled with elected district mayors and members of city council mostly affiliated with the ruling Democratic Party. Thus, deadlock is likely to ensue in South Korea’s two largest cities.

The reasons behind the losses for the Democratic Party are myriad and offer clear lessons for both parties in terms of how to move forward in preparation for the presidential elections next year. Young MPs recently addressed the electoral defeat, concluding that the Cho Kuk scandals were a crucial factor, and that the defeats were precipitated by the party’s decision to field candidates in the elections, which were caused by the misconduct of serving progressive mayors. This opinion irked the party’s establishment – and some DP supporters in the general public – and demands mounted for them to leave the party. Many in the ruling party regard the sexual harassment charges that led to the resignations of the two mayors as part of a plot orchestrated by the opposition rather than a sign of the flaws of the individuals concerned. Although the sexual harassment investigation fundamentally tainted his image, Park Won-soon, in particular, was a respected politician who devoted his career to building and promoting civil society.

As feminist scholar Cynthia Enloe notes, the #MeToo movement should be understood in the cultural and political context of each specific society. There is certainly a discrepancy in the understanding of what counts as sexual harassment between younger Korean women and male politicians of an older generation in power, who came of age in a society filled with pervasive misogyny.

Politically, while the opposing sides may not be very keen on listening to the other’s arguments, it is also conceivable that some of the arguments on both sides may be right. It is possible to acknowledge that the opposition may have fueled and has certainly benefited from the scandals within the ranks of the DP, but it should not be difficult to recognize that many of the DP’s problems were of its members’ own making.

The Moon administration triumphed in earlier presidential, parliamentary, and local elections not because the public uncritically endorses it and the Democratic Party, but because voters were driven by anger over the influence-peddling scandals of the previous Park Geun-hye administration, especially those involving Park’s close aide Choi Soon-sil and her daughter Chung Yu-ra. Candlelight vigils lasting 10 weeks sparked the 2017 impeachment of former President Park. The current government was born out of such popular demands for a fairer society, and its interests would be best served if its members remembered that and acted upon it by returning to its core agenda.

Similarly, the DP lost the April by-elections not because the opposition PPP performed particularly strongly, but due to widespread perceptions that the sitting administration failed to reduce the gap between the wealthy and privileged few and ordinary people, busy with the struggles of everyday life. South Korean progressives may have come to power with a strong sense of moral superiority built on their campaigns for the poor and quests for equality. Yet, like their counterparts, they also fell hard, as they have in the past. Former President Roh Moo-hyun, former leader of the Justice Party Roh Hoe-chan, and former Mayor of Seoul Park Won-soon all ended their own lives, unable to bear public humiliation.

In this electoral round, voters felt that the DP was protecting its own cadres and some of its leading figures were running the country incompetently. It may be premature to judge Moon’s housing reforms as failures, as South Korea’s high property prices may have other causes, too. However, many Koreans seem to feel that the playing field is not level and that the government has given up its regulatory power (some would say duty) to reduce inequalities, in favor of speculation that regularly benefits the already-wealthy and squeezes out ordinary residents. As the late Roh Moo-hyun famously and aptly said, “The power seems to be handed over to the market.”

In the wake of the electoral loss, the DP-led government started to reshuffle ministry positions and the ruling party also started open primary debates among candidates for party representatives. Public surveys are already fueling speculation as to who the potential candidates for the next presidential race might be. The rest of this year will be spent in strategizing and pre-campaigning mode, with both main parties actively engaged in a fission and fusion of political parties as they seek to co-opt potential allies. Once again coalition-building among parties and candidates will play a major role as a key electoral strategy. Seeking to grab swing voters will be critical for the conquest of the big prize in 2022.