Latest Developments in South Korea’s General Election Campaigns

South Korea’s general elections are around the corner, slated to take place on April 10. Until late February, polls and political wonks were predicting a narrow victory for the ruling People Power Party (PPP). The opposition Democratic Party (DP) currently holds a majority in the National Assembly, with 156 out of the 300 seats versus the PPP’s 114.

The DP owed its plummeting popularity in large part to its leader Lee Jae-myung, who had come under opprobrium from within and without for his iron grip on the party. He demanded his fellow DP legislators put their grievances aside and gather around him under the banner of fighting against President Yoon Suk-yeol’s authoritarian practices. The Yoon administration has trampled press freedom and used the prosecutor’s office to shield his family and eliminate political foes, including Lee.

In the name of opposing Yoon, however, Lee had become imperious in imposing compliance among the DP members, going so far as to exclude those criticizing him from the party ticket in the upcoming polls.

Squabbles over Lee’s leadership split the DP in half. Some legislators and party members deserted the party. Disgruntled supporters threatened not to show up to vote.

Throughout March, however, the tables turned. Polls in mid-March showed that the DP was ahead of the PPP by a couple of percentage points. That’s an auspicious sign for the DP, which conventionally underperforms in pre-election polls. For instance in 2016, polls anticipated a landslide PPP victory, but the DP ended up winning more seats. In another instance, in the October 2023 by-election, the DP and the PPP were neck-and-neck in polls, but the DP won in a landslide.

Of course, there are unknown variables and every election is an uncharted territory, but the mood has clearly changed in both camps.

As usual, each party’s chance at a parliamentary majority hinges on how much it manages not to offend voters in the gray zone. Both the PPP and the DP have their own staunch fans, around a quarter of the population each – those that will always vote for them no matter what they say and whom they field as candidates. The other half of the South Korean electorate, however, either doesn’t bother to vote or votes out of spite against whichever party offended them most recently. For now, some 54 percent of voters express their wish to punish the Yoon administration at the general elections, although support for the DP itself is way lower.

In that context, a lower voter turnout is better for the PPP. For the ruling party, the key to foiling the DP’s parliamentary majority is to tamp down voters’ indignation – and their thirst to bring the government to justice. PPP campaign policies have focused almost exclusively on maligning the DP as unfit to control the National Assembly so that those in the middle and against Yoon may vote for neither party. The party’s other tactic has been to distance itself from Yoon, presenting itself as a separate, independent entity not controlled by the president anymore.

Throughout January and February 2024, the PPP thrived at these strategies. It convincingly refashioned itself as a cool-headed alternative to both the Yoon administration and the DP, who are locked in extravagant legislative and executive battles against each other.

Yet its grand scheme of enticing the middle failed miserably in March with a series of blunders. First, the PPP nominated Do Tae-woo to run in a district in Daegu, South Korea’s fourth largest city and also a conservative stronghold. It was a mistake. Shortly after his nomination, the public found out about Do’s past remarks that praised dictatorship, questioned the motives of pro-democracy movements, and cruelly slandered South Korea’s most favorably-ranked former presidents. His insensitive remarks offended voters in the middle, many of whom cherish South Korea’s democratic history and former presidents. The PPP withdrew his ticket when the public demanded an apology.

Second, Hwang Sang-moo, one of Yoon’s senior advisers, warned journalists critical of Yoon to be careful. He cited an incident in 1988 where military secret service agents stabbed a journalist critical of the military’s political influence. Hwang implied that a similar misfortune would befall journalists for writing honestly on Yoon.

Hwang’s threat fanned public ire, reminding voters of the Yoon administration’s investigations of journalists on trumped-up charges of spreading fake news and imposition of heavy media censorship. But the PPP dawdled in taking a stance, refusing to denounce Hwang and the presidential office right away. Hwang resigned, but the incident confirmed that the PPP still cowers before Yoon.

Last but not least, Yoon appointed Lee Jong-sup as South Korea’s new ambassador to Australia. Lee served under Yoon as his first defense minister, before resigning last October over accusations that he had meddled in civilian investigations into the military top brass. Yoon allegedly manhandled Lee and the entire defense establishment to cover up professional negligence that led to the death of a marine last July. (I outlined the scandal in the October 2023 issue of the The Diplomat Magazine.)

Since then, Lee has been under investigations by the Corruption Investigation Office. Yoon’s abrupt nomination of Lee – and decision to send him packing away abroad – raised suspicions that Yoon felt the noose tightening around him and wanted to make Lee unavailable to answer questions. The public demanded his return, and Lee did come back to Seoul – although not because of the public anger but to attend an ambassador-level meeting on defense cooperation. The PPP responded that “the Lee scandal was resolved” since Lee returned to Seoul as per the voters’ insistence.

All these missteps reminded voters of how gaffe-prone and even callous the Yoon administration is. Recent events also deepened perceptions that the PPP is just a spokesperson for the government rather than a reasonable group of politicians that can advise and admonish Yoon – exactly the image the party had been trying to combat.

On the other hand, the DP seemed to siphon some of the wavering voters into their camp by shedding some of its far-left elements. It denied party tickets to candidates with a history of opposing deployment of a United States missile defense system to South Korea and opposing conscription.

Former senior government officials under former President Moon Jae-in also began to throw their untempered support to Lee Jae-myung. In South Korea, Moon holds the record for highest approval ratings for both incoming and outgoing presidents, attesting to his broad support base encompassing non-DP voters in the middle. Lee stands to benefit from association with Moon.

The DP is also benefiting from the skyrocketing popularity of the National Innovation Party (NIP), a third party created by a former justice minister under Moon, Cho Kuk. Importantly for the DP, Cho decided not to field candidates to contend for local constituencies, thereby preventing liberal votes from being split. Instead, his party is aiming for proportional representation votes.

South Korea’s National Assembly is made up of 253 constituency seats and 47 proportional representation seats. As opposed to district votes – where candidates from the PPP and the DP compete against one another for seats – shares in the latter are determined by how many votes each party receives in a separate ballot that asks the voters to choose their one favorite.

In the latest poll, Cho’s party received more than 30 percent support. It’s unprecedented for a rookie party to accumulate this much support in just two months since its inception. The party has sworn to indict and even impeach the Yoon government. It’s a boon for the DP: Cho’s supporters will show up to the polling station to vote for the NIP, and many will feel they might as well vote for the DP on the ballot for district representative at the same time.

Although signs are favorable for the liberal camp and the PPP is mired in yet more scandals, voting patterns and behaviors on the actual election day are never easily quantifiable nor predictable. Still, one thing is clear: the result hinges on the mutating perception and mood of the non-partisan voters.