All you need to know about Korea's general election

General election 2024

Published: 07 Apr. 2024, 19:34 Updated: 10 Apr. 2024, 12:54

All you need to know about Korea's general election

From left: Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung, People Power Party leader Han Dong-hoon, Saemirae Party leader Lee Nak-yon, Reform Party leader Lee Jun-seok and Rebuilding Korea Party leader Cho Kuk [YONHAP]

Koreans are likely to feel a sense of déjà vu as they cast their ballots for a new National Assembly on Wednesday in a general election framed as a chance to choose which of the country's two main parties they distrust less.

Although the election is ostensibly about electing 300 lawmakers, the spotlight of the campaign season has fallen mainly on one person who isn’t on the ballot: President Yoon Suk Yeol, who was elected by a razor-thin margin two years ago in what was then called an election between two “unlikeables.”

He has since struggled to maintain support from more than one-third of the electorate amid widespread woes over inflation, livelihood issues and the country’s slowing economy.

The liberal Democratic Party (DP), which has held the National Assembly for the past four years, is determined to make this election a referendum not only about Yoon’s performance but also various controversies surrounding his wife and administration officials. If the party maintains or expands its parliamentary majority, it could hobble Yoon for his remaining three years in office.

But the conservative People Power Party (PPP), which backs Yoon, is urging voters to repudiate the DP and its leader, Lee Jae-myung, who has been dogged by allegations of corruption and bribery since he ran against Yoon in the 2022 presidential election. Should the PPP wrest control of the legislature, the president would also be empowered to pursue wide-ranging but controversial domestic reforms while continuing to draw closer to the United States and Japan.

The framing of the election as a contest of perceptions by both main parties and the media has left little room for debate over policy as the country faces a myriad of challenges with no easy answers, such as a rock-bottom birth rate, sky-high housing prices and ever-rising security threats from North Korea and the broader region.

Why does the election matter?

For Yoon, who is constitutionally limited to a single five-year term in office, this election presents both opportunity and peril. The election is the only occasion that the legislative balance of power could tip in his favor while he is president, but it could also render him an early lame duck if the DP retains its majority.

The DP faces comparatively lower stakes, but losing control of the National Assembly would limit its current ability to check Yoon’s agenda and shape political discourse around his presidency.

Wielding its parliamentary majority, the party has held up presidential appointments and pushed through contentious bills, embarrassing no-confidence motions and probes scrutinizing the Yoon administration.

One recent example is the DP’s railroading of a special counsel probe bill to investigate first lady Kim Keon Hee for her acceptance of a luxury Dior bag from a Korean American pastor, alleged involvement in a stock price manipulation scheme and the rerouting of a planned motorway over land owned by her family.

Although the DP lacked the two-thirds majority necessary to override Yoon’s veto of the bill, its efforts put the president on the back foot and further dented his public standing. If the party wins more than 200 seats in the 300-member legislature, it could simply disregard any opposition from the president.

Ultimately, the composition of the new National Assembly is likely to affect the outlook of the government’s planned reforms in health care, education, labor rights and pensions.

Who are the key players?

One reason why this election is so much about dueling personalities is that both Yoon and Lee have largely succeeded in consolidating control over their parties, leaving little doubt over whose vision and governance style will prevail if either wins a legislative majority.

The president, who made his name as a hard-knuckle prosecutor general investigating key liberal figures before entering politics, cemented his hold over the conservative movement with the ouster of PPP leader Lee Jun-seok in August 2022 and installation of right-hand man Han Dong-hoon, also a former prosecutor who served as justice minister until December.

The PPP’s list of candidates running in the general election is stacked with Yoon loyalists, and 12 of those running under the party’s banner are former presidential officials and aides who did not have to go through internal primaries.

Following his expulsion, Lee Jun-seok now heads his own splinter group, named the Reform Party, but has failed to gain traction in the polls.

A similar situation has played out in the DP, whose slate of candidates is dominated by stalwarts of leader Lee Jae-myung.

Lee won the DP’s presidential nomination in 2021 despite being an outsider in a party traditionally stacked at the top with former leaders of the country’s pro-democracy movement.

Despite losing to Yoon in the 2022 race, he won a seat in the National Assembly through a by-election before going on to claim victory in the party’s leadership contest later that same year.

However, the DP-controlled National Assembly’s unexpected approval of an arrest motion against him on charges of corruption and bribery in September last year prompted his supporting faction within the DP to openly call for retribution against the party’s lawmakers who voted in favor of his arrest.

By declining to nominate 64 of its 163 sitting lawmakers for the upcoming election, the DP has been accused deliberately sidelining candidates deemed insufficiently loyal to Lee.

One of the major figures who left the party in protest over Lee Jae-myung’s leadership is Lee Nak-yon, a former prime minister who founded the Saemirae Party in February to offer liberal-minded voters an alternative to the Lee-dominated DP.

But that splinter party has also barely registered in opinion surveys.

One minor party that could throw a spanner in the traditional two-party contest is the Rebuilding Korea Party, led by former Justice Minister Cho Kuk.

Cho was a rising political star under former President Moon Jae-in until the state prosecution service in 2019, then led by Yoon, launched an investigation into allegations that he and his wife had falsified their children’s academic credentials to give them a leg up in university admissions. Both were later convicted.

The progressive Justice Party, led by Lee Jeong-mi, has in turn formed a coalition with the Green Party, and is considered to be aligned with the DP.

What are the parties promising?

Korea is confronting a raft of problems that have long defied solutions: a slowing economy, rising housing prices, a rapidly graying population, a plummeting birth rate and mounting security challenges from the surrounding region.

With the number of voters older than 60 surpassing that of voters in their 20s and 30s for the first time this election, both major parties are scrambling to attract the support of the elderly, who are also increasingly impoverished.

The PPP and DP have pledged to extend national health insurance coverage to caregiver expenses and provide free lunches at senior centers, but failed to explain how they intend to fund such initiatives.

After Yoon pledged to supply 3,000 public rental housing units annually for older people, the DP countered with its own pledge to create 100,000 housing units for older people over the next four years.

Both sides have also laid out new housing subsidy proposals to encourage people to have children, reflecting an increasing sense of urgency over the country’s abysmal birth rate, which last year fell to a new low of 0.72 — far below the 2.1 births per woman needed to maintain a stable population without immigration.

Last week, Yoon said his government would expand eligibility for low-interest housing loans for married couples with newborn children, while the PPP pledged to pass a new child care leave policy entitling workers to up to five days of paid annual leave to care for a sick child.

The DP has proposed more subsidies and advantages for couples to have babies, such as free public housing for families with two or more children, as well as zero-interest loans for newlyweds with at least one child.

Amid the ongoing standoff between the Yoon administration and striking junior doctors over the government’s plan to increase annual medical recruitment by 2,000 spots, PPP leader Han has positioned his party as a mediating force between doctors and the government.

But with both parties so indelibly stamped with the personalities of their respective figureheads, it is perhaps unsurprising that much of their campaigning focuses on stoking voter misgivings about each other.

In his speeches at PPP rallies, Han has repeatedly mentioned criminal allegations against his DP counterpart and opposition candidates in his descriptions of the rival party as a “haven” for corruption and “anti-state forces,” a term often invoked by conservatives to portray liberals as North Korea sympathizers.

The DP chief and Cho, who have been subjected to probes by the state prosecution service, have in turn called on voters to “punish” the government and the PPP, which they characterize as a “dictatorship run by prosecutors” who habitually target liberal rivals for criminal investigation.

An official at the National Election Commission's headquarters in Gwacheon, Gyeonggi, monitors CCTV footage of ballot boxes used in early voting that are being stored in various locations on Sunday. [YONHAP]

How is Korea’s National Assembly structured and selected?

Voters in the general election are given two ballots at the polling station: a short one for choosing a candidate to represent their local parliamentary constituency in the National Assembly, and another longer paper to choose one of 38 parties that are competing for seats selected by proportional representation.

Of the National Assembly’s 300 seats, 254 represent regional constituencies where winners are selected by first-past-the-post voting. These directly elected seats are usually contested by only the PPP and the DP.

The remaining 46 spots in the legislature are filled by party-list proportional representation, but two parties on the longer ballot — the People Future Party and the Democratic United Party — are actually satellites created by the PPP and DP to gain extra seats through the parallel voting system.

The minor parties, such as the Rebuilding Korea Party, Saemirae Party, and Reform Party, are expected to gain some seats through proportional representation, potentially affecting the balance of power between the PPP and DP.

Where are the most hotly contested constituencies?

In the run-up to the election, rival parties are working especially hard to woo voters in the Seoul metropolitan area, which holds 122, or nearly half, of the 254 directly elected regional constituencies.

The most hotly contested constituencies among the capital’s 48 electoral districts are 11 seats representing the Yeongdeungpo, Gwangjin, Jung, Seongdong, Yongsan and Dongjak districts, which line the Han River.

Other tight races in the capital region that are being closely watched include Seongnam’s Bundang-A constituency, where former presidential hopeful and PPP candidate Rep. Ahn Cheol-soo is running against DP rival Lee Kwang-jae, and Incheon’s Gyeyang-B electoral district, where DP leader Lee is running against Won Hee-ryong, Yoon’s former land minister.

Another key election battleground is the “Nakdong River belt,” which includes 10 electoral districts in Busan and neighboring South Gyeongsang where the rival parties are neck-and-neck in polls. In the 2020 general election, the DP won five seats in this region and the PPP won four.

PPP chief Han spent the weekend campaigning around Chungcheong, another swing region with 28 constituencies up for grabs, while DP leader Lee campaigned in Gangnam District, southern Seoul, which leans conservative.

The DP is expected to sweep the southwestern city of Gwangju and the surrounding Jeolla region, which is traditionally a liberal stronghold.

How could the outcome of the general election affect Korea's foreign policy?

Contentious foreign policy issues include relations with Japan, a possible trilateral summit between South Korea, Japan and China and escalating regional tensions tied to North Korea’s continued weapons tests and military cooperation with Russia.

If the PPP wins a majority, the Yoon administration could feel empowered to pursue even closer security cooperation with the United States and Japan. If the DP wins a majority, however, the government could face stronger resistance as it seeks rapprochement with Tokyo, a stance reviled by liberals.

The DP last year strongly criticized the Yoon government’s muted response to Japan’s decision to release treated radioactive water from the ruined Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, although the International Atomic Energy Agency said the plan was safe.

DP leader Lee has also argued the Yoon government should approach relations with China and the United States in a more balanced fashion to avoid being caught in between the superpowers in a potential conflict over Taiwan.

The PPP and DP also differ sharply in their approach to North Korea.

The DP’s campaign has criticized Yoon for Seoul’s deteriorating relationship with Pyongyang. The party argues that trust between the two Koreas can be rebuilt through humanitarian aid and economic cooperation, and that improvements in North Korean human rights will come about from better relations.

For its part, the PPP, which deeply distrusts the North, has focused on expanding state assistance to North Korean defectors and their families.

Where to find more information on the 2024 Korean general election:

General election articles by the Korea JoongAng Daily
National Election Commission website

BY MICHAEL LEE, SARAH KIM, LIM JEONG-WON, LEE SOO-JUNG, CHO JUNG-WOO [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]