South Korea election: President Yoon down but not out

The campaign was bruising, the ruling bloc's defeat was crushing and now South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol is contrite — after his People Power Party (PPP) lost its parliamentary majority on Wednesday, Yoon promised to reform the nation to better reflect the public's will.

"I will humbly accept the will of the people expressed in the general election and will strive to reform the administration and do my best to stabilize the economy and enhance people's livelihoods," Yoon said in a statement delivered by his chief of staff.

This is a tall order for a leader without a parliamentary majority. The scale of the defeat — the PPP and allied parties won just 108 seats in the 300-strong National Assembly — means the opposition can, if it wishes, block any legislative initiatives for the remainder of Yoon's three years in office and take every opportunity to score political points.

And Yoon's rivals are already on the move. Just hours after the election, Cho Kuk, the head of the newly established Rebuilding Korea Party, demanded an investigation into Kim Keon Hee, Yoon's wife. The case is in connection with allegations of manipulating stock prices of a car dealership in 2012 and accepting an expensive Dior handbag from a left-wing pastor in 2022.

Cho seeks revenge

Many believe Cho is on a revenge mission. Cho was appointed justice minister in 2019, but was only in office for 35 days before resigning in the face of allegations of tax evasion and falsifying his daughter's academic achievements to help her obtain a place at a prestigious medical university.

Those investigations of Cho and his family — which led to his wife being sentenced to a prison term and Cho losing his job in the law faculty of Seoul National University — were conducted by Yoon, who was then chief prosecutor.

Cho has managed to stage a surprising political comeback, launching his Rebuilding Korea Party only a month before the election and winning 12 seats as part of an alliance with the larger Democratic Party.

Settling old scores, however, might not be the best strategy for the opposition.

Newspaper editorials in the last two days have broadly called on the main parties to find ways to work together for the good of the nation, to try to move on from the sometimes vicious electioneering of recent weeks and reduce the polarization in politics.

'Be humble, listen to the people'

The leader of the Democratic Party, Lee Jae-myung, is already looking ahead to 2027, when Yoon is due to step down after completing the single five-year term granted by the South Korean constitution.

Lee will work to make his party "appear reasonable," Kim Sang Woo, a former politician with the left-leaning South Korean Congress for New Politics and now a member of the board of the Kim Dae Jung Peace Foundation, told DW.

"The best way to achieve that may be to keep the debates polite and low-key, so that he and the party can translate the landslide they have just won in these midterm elections into a similar win in the presidential vote in three years," he said.

Yoon, similarly, needs to reform his image and come across as being "less arrogant, less condescending" because those attributes have clearly made the electorate "angry," Kim said.

Even though he is barred from running again, Yoon will need to "be humble and listen to people" in order to give his party a fighting chance.

This will mean more focus on policy differences, such as Yoon's proposals for tax cuts, or the Democratic Party's push for funding renewable energy sources, which clashes with the government's preference for nuclear power. Yoon and his allies also have a firmer stance on North Korea than their rivals from the liberal Democratic Party, and the latest PPP government has moved the country closer to the US and Japan. Senior members of the Democratic Party are instead calling for improved ties with China and for Seoul to avoid involvement in Beijing's claims to Taiwan.

Opposition leaders also in trouble

Park Jung Won, a professor of international Law at Dankook University, believes Yoon can claw back some of the popularity that won him the presidency before the 2027 election. The professor points out that Democratic Party leader Lee also faces allegations of illegal activity.

"There is huge judicial risk attached to Lee" over a high-profile corruption case linked to a land development project during Lee's time as mayor of Seongnam, Park told DW.

Lee — who made his latest court appearance the day before the election — has also been linked to the illegal transfer of funds to North Korea, although he has denied all the charges against him.

"I have never seen a political party with so many legal issues hanging over it," he said.

Similarly, a cloud of scandal still hangs over ally Cho Kuk, Park added. Park believes the conflict between the new parliament and the president will escalate.

"Lee may be relatively quiet at the moment, but the No. 1 priority for both [Cho] and Lee is revenge against Yoon, including the possibility of impeachment," he added. "The next few years are going to be challenging."

Edited by: Darko Janjevic

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