The Fallout From South Korea’s General Elections

In the early evening of April 10, when South Korea’s major broadcasters aired the exit polls from the country’s legislative elections, claps and triumphant handshakes waved through the situation room of the opposition Democratic Party (DP). Meanwhile, heavy silence draped over the ruling People Power Party (PPP). The exit polls predicted that the liberal camp – the DP, the DP’s satellite party, and the Rebuilding Korea Party (RKP) – would win more than 200 parliamentary seats out of the National Assembly’s total of 300.

It was a death knell for the PPP and President Yoon Suk-yeol. Controlling two-thirds of the parliament would mean that the progressives could overrule the president’s vetoes. It also would mean that they could amend the constitution and even impeach Yoon.

Luckily for the Yoon administration and the conservatives, in the end, the pan-opposition camp won 192 seats, eight short of the two-thirds majority needed to seriously disturb or dethrone Yoon.

There are four main takeaways from the election results.

First, the PPP can no longer purport to be a national party. Its victors came almost exclusively from the southeastern part of the country, a historically conservative area, and some rich districts in the Seoul Metropolitan Area. It failed to capture the political middle.

Second, the election result was South Koreans’ last warning to Yoon to stop going it alone. He has long refused to work with the DP, let alone to meet with Lee Jae-myung, the DP’s leader, whose voice matters owing to the party’s long-running parliamentary majority. After the resounding electoral defeat, however, Yoon called Lee to coordinate a tête-à-tête in the presidential office.

Third, the general elections result delivered a clear judgment on the Yoon administration, especially its practice of protecting Yoon’s people at the expense of public interests. Heeding public opinion, some newly-elected PPP legislators indicated their support for the liberals’ push to appoint special counsels to investigate prominent scandals involving Yoon and his close associates. So far, Yoon has pulled strings in prosecutor’s office to prevent any investigations into his friends and family. He has also vetoed previous legislative calls for special counsels.

At the top of its agenda, the liberal camp is raring to create a special counsel to look into the Marine Corps scandal, in which a marine died due to professional negligence on the part of the top brass. Allegations and evidence surfaced that implicate Yoon and Lee Jong-sup, Yoon’s former defense minister, in abusing their power to cover for high-ranking officers. The special counsel law will surely pass in the National Assembly, given the DP’s solid majority, but it remains to be seen if Yoon would veto it again. If so, it would only take eight or more PPP legislators to join the liberal camp to reverse his veto.

The next agenda would most likely be another special counsel to investigate First Lady Kim Keon-hee. She engaged in a stock manipulation scheme, and her collaborators have already been convicted. Yet, the prosecutor’s office, formerly headed by Yoon, has shied away from indicting Kim herself. Additionally, there’s an allegation that the Yoon administration unreasonably changed the course of a highway closer to her family property to jack up its market value, which the prosecutor’s office has also refused to look into. Putting the cherry on the cake, Kim received a designer handbag from an acquaintance in a video sting operation, which constitutes bribery under South Korean law. The authorities have turned a blind eye to this as well.

Another agenda prepared by the DP concerns the 2022 Itaewon Halloween crowd crush in which almost 160 young people died. Victims and their families are still demanding impartial investigations into the officials whose inattention and inadequate response led to so many casualties. A new law in the pipeline intends to start another round of investigation, hopefully a fair one this time.

The liberal camp can’t help but obsess over their parliamentary majority to pass special counsel laws because of the unreliability of the prosecutor’s office. Prosecutors wield both investigative and prosecutorial powers. They also still tacitly hold Yoon, their former chief prosecutor, to be their boss. Only special counsels can circumvent the prosecutors’ omnipotent power and conduct fair investigations. With the public anger so clearly expressed at the general elections, the prosecutor’s office can’t indefinitely work for one man lest it face a far-reaching reform depriving it of investigative authority.

Finally, the general elections gave weight to third parties, especially the RKP. The RKP was founded earlier this year by Cho Kuk, a former justice minister under liberal President Moon Jae-in who has been a principal target of political retaliation by the prosecutor’s office for his previous effort to shave its power. Cho’s new party earned 12 seats in the polls. Given that the DP and its satellite party have 175 seats, they will need the RKP’s support to fast-track bills, which requires 180 legislators.

In addition, the Reform Party, created by former PPP leader Lee Jun-seok, secured three seats. These will be important as potential breakaway votes from the PPP in reaching the 200 parliamentary votes needed to overturn Yoon’s veto.

What to look out for in the near future is whether Yoon changes tack to cooperate with the liberals or steadfastly stays the course. The first choice would end the legislative-executive stalemate where no major bills have seen the light of the day. The latter choice could potentially alienate more PPP legislators from Yoon and push them to throw their lot in with the liberal camp. In this case, whether by special counsels or by impeachment, Yoon’s political life would be on the line.