Still heading to a world poles apart

Chang Duk-jin
The author is a professor of sociology at Seoul National University.

This parliamentary election defies common sense. Political parties are supposed to converge in the middle to court votes from centrists and moderates. But that is no more. Since Lee Jae-myung’s narrow defeat in the last presidential election, the majority Democratic Party (DP), still under his helm, has surprisingly turned to the left, showing no intention to return to the center. The governing People Power Party (PPP) has veered towards the right to rally support from conservative voters. Why is this election debunking the norms and moving to the extremes while leaving the center empty?

The DP’s Lee needs to set his eyes on the left horizon, given the nine counts of criminal charges for which he is currently on trial. Lee could face grave consequences if found guilty of any of them, particularly given mostly consistent testimony from witnesses in court. The odds of Lee coming off clean of all nine charges are those of winning nine straight rounds of rock paper scissors. Instead of wishing for a windfall, Lee should find a political escape in the parliamentary election, and later the presidential election, by aligning the party with his supporters in the legislature and beyond. For such a high-stakes gamble, the DP leader needs devoted supporters on the left more than those from the unreliable center.

With the DP fully tilted to the left, President Yoon Suk Yeol and the PPP are comfortably positioned to target the broad center along with its traditional home base on the right. And yet, they are wasting the godsend because they lack the ability to promote their policies and communicate with voters in a convincing way.

The presidential office not only kicked an own goal by appointing former defense minister Lee Jong-sup, who was facing corruption charges, as the ambassador to Australia at such a critical time, but also seems to be oblivious to the significance of the role of the envoy to Canberra to Indo-Pacific security.

The red-hot issue of increasing the medical school quota could have drawn less backlash if the government had patiently pitched the need for more doctors in a super-aged society. After a head-on clash, it now stands at the mercy of striking doctors ahead of the crucial election. The agendas — which could have been driven on the centrist path if they had been anchored by a visionary roadmap and consistency — are now running on a single right wheel.

A month ago, when the polls were running in favor of the PPP, the contest pitted its leader Han Dong-hoon against the DP’s Lee. The campaign has become a contest between the president and the DP leader on a crusade to impeach him. To turn the tide, the PPP leader must raise his political stature as the next presidential candidate for the conservative front so voters will cast their ballots with eyes on the future, not the past. But that kind of endorsement may not be easy for the president. Most election pundits bet on the DP’s victory in the upcoming legislative election, barring a sudden headwind. What will happen if the majority party, still under Lee’s control, retakes the legislature?

The U.S. presidential election is moving along a similar path with Donald Trump holding the upper hand in an apparent rematch with President Joe Biden. Trump’s judicial risks are far more pernicious than Lee Jae-myung’s are. Trump faces 91 felony counts, including fraud, sexual assault, solicitation, leaks of government secrets and a plot to overturn a lost election. Yet Trump won his bid for the next presidency as the Republican candidate. Could he really finish the campaign if convicted? Although the 14th Amendment bars anyone who has engaged in “insurrection or rebellion” against the United States or “given aid or comfort” to enemies of the country from running for president, whether Trump is liable for the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot in defiance of the election results is still being debated.

Under Korea’s election law, a convict with a prison term loses the right to run in an election. The options left for Lee are to defer the trials, pressure the Justice Ministry to withhold the rulings until after presidential election or impeach the president in order to advance the next race. The political saga of extremities will likely to continue even after the parliamentary election closes.

Translation by the Korea JoongAng Daily staff.