In the April 15 parliamentary elections, President Moon Jae-in’s Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) captured an overwhelming majority of the National Assembly (180 of 300 seats). This historically unprecedented feat in South Korea reminds us that, to borrow a phrase, “Timing is everything in politics.”
Last year, Moon was mired in low approval ratings (in the low 40s), because of South Korea’s economic slowdown and various political scandals, especially those tied to his former Justice Minister Cho Kuk. A couple of months ago, in the early stages of the novel coronavirus outbreak, Moon was criticized for not banning travelers from China, against the advice of the Korean Medical Association. Since mid-March, however, South Korea’s mainstream media have effusively praised the Moon administration for leading, and winning, the battle against COVID-19.
But Korean public attitudes may shift again later this year, if other countries recover and adapt more quickly to the post-COVID economy. South Korea’s economy was the leading political issue before COVID-19, and it shall rise to the top again as the pandemic eases. If the economy does not recover by the next presidential election (May 22, 2022), critics will again blame Moon and the DPK’s policies — sharply raising the minimum wage, limiting workers to a 52-hour week, phasing out nuclear power, as well as (informally) boycotting Japan-related goods, services, and travel.
In contrast to COVID-19, critics claim, the Moon administration’s approach to economics and foreign affairs has not been guided by experts in line with the global mainstream, but by a left-wing, nationalist ideology designed to rectify the accumulated injustices of (allegedly) pro-Japanese, pro-capitalist elites. The Moon administration, emboldened by its legislative majority, may further its leftist-nationalist agenda, including enforcing the 2018 Supreme Court ruling expropriating Japanese company assets to compensate colonial-era laborers. Unless Moon follows in the footsteps of Germany’s Gerhard Schröder and shifts to pragmatic and pro-market policies, South Korea may experience continued bilateral tensions and economic stagnation.
Conversely, the 2020 elections will help unify opponents of the ruling DPK and potentially open up the major rightist United Future Party (UFP) to new leaders and ideas. The elections wiped out the center-right Party for People’s Livelihoods (PPL, Minsaengdang), formerly the minor party alternative for politicians who defected from the major rightist party (then called Saenuri) over former President Park Geun-hye’s impeachment. With PPL’s demise, anti-DPK politicians have little choice but to rejoin the UFP. With their own electoral setback — nearly all of UFP’s senior leaders lost their competitive Seoul races — the UFP will be more open to former defectors, such as 2017 presidential candidate Yoo Seong-min.
Although South Korea’s immediate political future will be determined by the ruling DPK, its long-term politics may be impacted more by what happens with the conservative opposition. Sustained electoral defeats potentially open up opposition parties to alternative ideas, movements, and leaders that may, over time, generate new majority coalitions. In the United States, for example, for nearly half a century (1932 to 1980), the Republican Party (GOP) was dominated by the Democrats, both in electoral politics (especially control of the U.S. Congress) and in the cultural realm of ideas. Activists and intellectuals outside of the GOP leadership focused on building a grassroots, conservative movement and counterculture. By 1980, the conservative movement helped create a new governing majority behind Ronald Reagan.
The COVID-19 pandemic overshadowed South Korea’s ideological divisions, but they remain deep and growing. The DPK’s ambitious campaign to remake South Korea’s domestic institutions and foreign relations is a continuing earthquake that unsettles various social groups, from UFP mainstays (e.g., older anti-communists) to relative newcomers. The latter group includes prosecutors, who oppose Moon’s proposal to reduce their investigatory powers (e.g., former prosecutor and newly elected Assembly member Kim Woong); North Korean defectors alarmed by Moon’s North Korea policies (e.g., former North Korean ambassador and newly elected Assembly member Thae Yong-ho); and free-market liberals opposed to increasing government regulations (e.g., Korea Hayek Society).
The group with potentially the most radical cultural and political impact are self-described post-nationalist classic liberals, who reject South Korea’s ingrained, anti-Japanese nationalism – for example, fans of the highly controversial 2019 best seller Anti-Japan Tribalism (edited by former Seoul National economics professor Lee Young-hoon), which sold more than a hundred thousand copies in Korea and double that in Japan. Emerging “new right” or “post-nationalist right” groups, such as the intercollegiate Truth Forum, have endorsed Lee’s book and promote a South Korean identity based not on ethno-nationalism but on universal values of individual freedom, free markets, and religious-based (especially Judeo-Christian) morality (i.e., “markets and moralism”). They oppose the nationalist and anti-Japanese historiography taught in schools and promote a “liberal-democratic” alliance of South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. On October 3, 2019, South Korea’s first-ever CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) conference, partly organized by Truth Forum, brought together like-minded conservatives from the United States, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and South Korea, including senior UFP leaders and the Hawaii-based One Korea Network.
April 15’s overwhelming victory by the DPK does not guarantee future results. Opportunities and pitfalls lie in front of both the major ruling and opposition parties. Like “anti-Trumpers” in the United States, anti-Moon partisans, whatever their various viewpoints, share a strong goal to defeat the president’s party in the next presidential election. As a result, the major opposition UFP is experiencing an influx of new ideas and activists that may, in the long term, fundamentally reshape South Korean culture and politics.
On a closing note, April 15, 2020 also marked the 31-year anniversary of the Tiananmen Square democracy protests in China, which started April 15, 1989. (Back then, the first author was an idealistic high school senior, who helped deliver a petition of support, signed by more than a hundred classmates, to the Chinese consulate in Los Angeles.) Many of those Chinese protesters were inspired by South Korea’s June 1987 Democracy movement. Every free election in South Korea celebrates democracy and hopefully encourages all those struggling for liberty in their countries.
Joseph Yi is an associate professor of Political Science at Hanyang University (Seoul).
Wondong Lee is a Ph.D. student in Political Science at the University of California, Irvine.
This article was supported by Hanyang University Research Fund.
The New Democrats have declared a federal byelection victory in their Winnipeg stronghold riding of Elmwood—Transcona.
The NDP candidate Leila Dance told supporters in a tearful speech that even though the final results weren’t in, she expected she would see them in Ottawa.
With several polls still to be counted, Conservative candidate Colin Reynolds conceded defeat and told his volunteers that they should be proud of what the Conservatives accomplished in the campaign.
Political watchers had a keen eye on the results to see if the Tories could sway traditionally NDP voters on issues related to labour and affordability.
Meanwhile in the byelection race in the Montreal riding of LaSalle—Émard—Verdun the NDP, Liberals and Bloc Québécois remained locked in an extremely tight three-way race as the results trickled in slowly.
The Liberal stronghold riding had a record 91 names on the ballot, and the results aren’t expected until the early hours of the morning.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
VANCOUVER – An incumbent BC United legislative member has reversed her decision not to seek re-election and has announced she’ll run as an Independent in the riding of West Vancouver-Capilano in the upcoming British Columbia election.
Karin Kirkpatrick has been a vocal critic of BC United Leader Kevin Falcon’s decision last month to suspend the party’s campaign and throw support behind the B.C. Conservatives under John Rustad.
Kirkpatrick announced her retirement this year, but said Monday that her decision to re-enter the race comes as a direct result of Falcon’s actions, which would force middle-of-the-road voters to “swing to the left” to the NDP or to move further right to the Conservatives.
“I did hear from a lot of constituents and a lot of people who were emailing me from across B.C. … that they didn’t have anybody to vote for,” she said. “And so, I looked even at myself, and I looked at my riding, and I said, ‘Well, I no longer have anybody to vote for in my own riding.’ It was clearly an issue of this missing middle for the more moderate voter.”
She said voters who reached out “don’t want to vote for an NDP government but felt deeply uncomfortable” supporting the provincial Conservatives, citing Rustad’s tolerance of what she calls “extreme views and conspiracy theorists.”
Kirkpatrick joins four other incumbent Opposition MLAs running as Independents, including Peace River South’s Mike Bernier, Peace River North’s Dan Davies, Prince George-Cariboo’s Coralee Oakes and Tom Shypitka in Kootenay-Rockies.
“To be honest, we talk just about every day,” Kirkpatrick said about her fellow BC United incumbents now running as Independents. “We’re all feeling the same way. We all need to kind of hold each other up and make sure we’re doing the right thing.”
She added that a number of first-time candidates formerly on the BC United ticket are contacting the group of incumbents running for election, and the group is working together “as good moderates who respect each other and lift each other up.”
But Kirkpatrick said it’s also too early to talk about the future of BC United or the possibility of forming a new party.
“The first thing we need to do is to get these Independent MLAs elected into the legislature,” she said, noting a strong group could play a power-broker role if a minority government is elected. “Once we’re there then we’re all going to come together and we’re going to figure out, is there something left in BC United, BC Liberals that we can resurrect, or do we need to start a new party that’s in the centre?”
She said there’s a big gap left in the political spectrum in the province.
“So, we just have to do it in a mindful way, to make sure it’s representing the broadest base of people in B.C.”
Among the supporters at Kirkpatrick’s announcement Monday was former longtime MLA Ralph Sultan, who held West Vancouver-Capilano for almost two decades before retiring in 2020.
The Metro Vancouver riding has been a stronghold for the BC Liberals — the former BC United — since its formation in 1991, with more than half of the votes going to the centre-right party in every contest.
However, Kirkpatrick’s winning margin of 53.6 per cent to the NDP’s 30.1 per cent and the Green’s 15.4 per cent in the 2020 election shows a rising trend for left-leaning voters in the district.
Mike McDonald, chief strategy officer with Kirk and Co. Consulting, and a former campaign director for the BC Liberals and chief of staff under former Premier Christy Clark, said Independent candidates historically face an uphill battle and the biggest impact may be splitting votes in areas where the NDP could emerge victorious.
“It really comes down to, if the NDP are in a position to get 33 per cent of the vote, they might have a chance of winning,” McDonald said of the impact of an Independent vote-split with the Conservatives in certain ridings.
He said B.C. history shows it’s very hard for an Independent to win an election and has been done only a handful of times.
“So, the odds do not favour Independents winning the seats unless there is a very unique combination of circumstances, and more likely that they play a role as a spoiler, frankly.”
The B.C. Conservatives list West Vancouver School District Trustee Lynne Block as its candidate in West Vancouver-Capilano, while the BC NDP is represented by health care professional Sara Eftekhar.
Kirkpatrick said she is confident that her re-entry to the race will not result in a vote split that allows the NDP to win the seat because the party has always had a poor showing in the riding.
“So, even if there is competition between myself and the Conservative candidate, it is highly unlikely that anything would swing over to the NDP here. And I believe that I have the ability to actually attract those NDP voters to me, as well as the Conservatives and Liberals who are feeling just lost right now.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Antony Blinken heads to Egypt on Tuesday for his 10th trip to the Middle East since the war in Gaza began nearly a year ago, this one aimed partly at refining a proposal to present to Israel and Hamas for a cease-fire deal and release of hostages.
Unlike in recent mediating missions, America’s top diplomat this time is traveling without optimistic projections from the Biden administration of an expected breakthrough in the troubled negotiations.
Also unlike the earlier missions, Blinken has no public plans to go to Israel to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on this trip. The Israeli leader’s fiery public statements — like his declaration that Israel would accept only “total victory” when Blinken was in the region in June — and some other unbudgeable demands have complicated earlier diplomacy.
Blinken is going to Egypt for talks Wednesday with Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty and others, in a trip billed as focused both on American-Egyptian relations and Gaza consultations with Egypt.
The tamped-down public approach follows months in which President Joe Biden and his officials publicly talked up an agreement to end the war in Gaza as being just within reach, hoping to build pressure on Netanyahu’s far-right government and Hamas to seal a deal.
The Biden administration now says it is working with fellow mediators Egypt and Qatar to come up with a revised final proposal to try to at least get Israel and Hamas into a six-week cease-fire that would free some of the hostages held by Hamas in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. Americans believe public attention on details of the talks now would only hurt that effort.
American, Qatari and Egyptian officials still are consulting “about what that proposal will contain, and …. we’re trying to see that it’s a proposal that can get the parties to an ultimate agreement,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Monday.
The State Department pointed to Egypt’s important role in Gaza peace efforts in announcing last week that the Biden administration planned to give the country its full $1.3 billion in military aid, overriding congressional requirements that the U.S. hold back some of the funding if Egypt fails to show adequate progress on human rights. Blinken told Congress that Egypt has made progress on human rights, including in freeing political prisoners.
Blinken’s trip comes amid the risk of a full-on new front in the Middle East, with Israel threatening increasing military action against the Hezbollah militant organization in Lebanon. Biden envoy Amos Hochstein was in Israel on Monday to try to calm tensions after a stop in Lebanon.
Hezbollah has one of the strongest militaries in the Middle East, and like Hamas and smaller groups in Syria and Iraq it is allied with Iran.
Hezbollah and Israel have exchanged strikes across Israel’s northern border with Lebanon since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas started the war in Gaza. Hezbollah says it will ease those strikes — which have uprooted tens of thousands of civilians on both sides of the border — only when there’s a cease-fire in Gaza.
Hochstein told Netanyahu and other Israeli officials that intensifying the conflict with Hezbollah would not help get Israelis back in their homes, according to a U.S. official. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private talks, said Hochstein stressed to Netanyahu that he risked sparking a broad and protracted regional conflict if he moved forward with a full-scale war in Lebanon.
Hochstein also underscored to Israeli officials that the Biden administration remained committed to finding a diplomatic solution to the tensions on Israel’s northern border in conjunction with a Gaza deal or on its own, the official said.
Netanyahu told Hochstein that it would “not be possible to return our residents without a fundamental change in the security situation in the north.” The prime minister said Israel “appreciates and respects” U.S. support but “will do what is necessary to maintain its security and return the residents of the north to their homes safely.”
Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, meanwhile, warned in his meeting with Hochstein that “the only way left to ensure the return of Israel’s northern communities to their homes will be via military action,” his office said.
In Gaza, the U.S. says Israel and Hamas have agreed to a deal in principle and that the biggest obstacles now include a disagreement on details of the hostage and prisoner swap and control over a buffer zone on the border between Gaza and Egypt. Netanyahu has demanded in recent weeks that the Israeli military be allowed to keep a presence in the Philadelphi corridor. Egypt and Hamas have rejected that demand.
The Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7 killed about 1,200 people. Militants also abducted 250 people and are still holding around 100 hostages. About a third of the remaining hostages are believed to be dead.
Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, said Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and militants in its count. The war has caused widespread destruction, displaced a majority of Gaza’s people and created a humanitarian crisis.
Netanyahu says he is working to bring home the hostages. His critics accuse him of slow-rolling a deal because it could bring down his hardline coalition government, which includes members opposed to a truce with the Palestinians.
Asked earlier this month if Netanyahu was doing enough for a cease-fire deal, Biden said, simply, “no.” But he added that he still believed a deal was close.
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Associated Press writer Aamer Madhani contributed to this report.
