‘Heartbreaking' election: Minor parties struggle for visibility in Korea’s snap vote

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‘Heartbreaking' election: Minor parties struggle for visibility in Korea’s snap vote

Published: 30 May. 2025, 13:17 Updated: 02 Jun. 2025, 18:34

Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI

At around 7 p.m. on May 28 near Janghanpyeong Station in Dongdaemun District, eastern Seoul, four campaigners from the conservative People Power Party play Kim Moon-soo’s campaign song from a truck, while two Democratic Labor Party staffers campaign without a truck. [JOONGANG ILBO]

Near Janghanpyeong Station in Dongdaemun District, eastern Seoul, on Wednesday evening, the contrast was stark: seven campaigners from the Conservative People Power Party (PPP) waved placards and blasted music from a truck, while two Democratic Labor Party campaigners shouted hoarsely without even a speaker. The scene captured the disparity defining Korea's June 3 snap presidential election looks like — rushed, uneven and unusually subdued.

With just weeks to prepare following former President Yoon Suk Yeol’s impeachment on April 4, campaigns are scrambling. Major parties are pushing forward with near-maximal efforts, while minor parties like the Democratic Labor Party are operating under severe constraints. The result is a visibly quieter election and mounting concerns about representation and fairness.

The Democratic Labor Party is operating a total of eight campaign trucks for the June 3 election — less than half the number used by its predecessor, the social democratic Justice Party, when its candidate Sim Sang-jeung ran in the 2022 presidential election, according to the labor party on Thursday.

The number of campaign staffers has also been reduced by 7.6 percent from 1,831 to 1,692.

“We can’t expand our campaign because we’re worried we won’t be reimbursed for our expenses,” said Democratic Labor Party spokesperson Moon Jung-eun. “We’re fighting through a heartbreaking election at a scale we’ve never experienced before.”

Kwon Young-gook, presidential candidate of the Democratic Labor Party, casts his ballot at an early voting station set up in Yeosu, South Jeolla on May 29, the first day of early voting for the 21st presidential election. [YONHAP]

Minor parties struggle with visibility

The Democratic Labor Party spent about 600 million won ($437,900) on the June 3 snap election — around 20 percent of the 3.2 billion won spent when Sim ran in 2022. This pales in comparison to the roughly 50 billion won budgets declared by major parties. The splinter conservative Reform Party has declared it will run its campaign on “just 5 billion won” as well.

Both the liberal Democratic Party (DP) and the PPP are reportedly spending close to the campaign expenditure cap of 58.8 billion won, as they did in the previous election.

The PPP has put up around 21,000 campaign banners nationwide — up 50 percent from the roughly 14,000 it hung during the last election — and is deploying campaigners and trucks near the maximum allowed by the National Election Commission (NEC). The DP has not disclosed exact numbers but said it has also increased its campaign banners and trucks this time.

Minor parties face a heightened risk of not being reimbursed for campaign expenses. Under Korea’s publicly funded election system, a candidate must secure at least 15 percent of the vote to have all expenses reimbursed, or at least 10 percent to get half back. Failing to reach 10 percent means losing not only the campaign budget but also the 300-million-won deposit submitted to the NEC.

Posters for presidential candidates are seen plastered on a wall in Yeoksam-dong, Gangnam District, southern Seoul on May 29. [NEWS1]

The Democratic Labor Party reduced the number of campaign banners from 5,562 in the last election to 3,609 as of Wednesday — a 35.1 percent drop — even though the election commission has doubled the allowable number of banners per town to two.

The labor party also trimmed its campaign brochures from eight pages to two for distribution to 24 million households between May 19 and 20. The Reform Party is using four-page brochures and operating only four campaign trucks.

Voters are noticing the scaled-back presence. Lee Mok-hee, 71, who was near Janghanpyeong Station the previous day, said, “I was hoping to find a campaign truck after hearing some memorable comments from certain candidates during the debates, but I didn’t see a single one. Compared to the DP and PPP, it’s clear that minor party campaigning is less visible — but I’ve never seen it this minimal.”

“The volume of campaign brochure printing has dropped by half compared to three years ago, mostly because minor parties have cut their orders,” said the head of a printing company in Paju, Gyeonggi.

Impeached and former President Yoon Suk Yeol, left, is seen together with liberal Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung in a photo taken in 2024. [YONHAP]

Unprecedented disarray

Civic and business groups are also struggling due to the lack of engagement from political parties.

The Korea Federation of Micro Enterprises (KFME) said it sent policy recommendations to DP candidate Lee Jae-myung and PPP candidate Kim Moon-soo online, as it was unable to host in-person events. In contrast, both candidate Lee and then-candidate Yoon Suk Yeol attended KFME events in 2022 and presented their small business policies in person.

“Because the major parties nominated their candidates relatively late, we couldn’t schedule forums or roundtables,” said a KFME official. In fact, the time between candidate nomination and day of the election this year is just a quarter of what it was in 2022.

The DP, PPP and Justice Party all selected their candidates 124 to 150 days ahead of the election at the time. This year, that period shrank to just 23 to 37 days. The rapid timeline is a result of the constitutional requirement to elect a new president within 60 days of the dismissal of former Yoon on April 4.

“For the 2022 election, we knew the date in advance, so student organizations had time to plan their demands,” said a representative from the All-Korean University Student Council network. “But with this snap election coming after a Constitutional Court ruling, we barely had time to prepare proposals.”

Presidential candidates Lee Jae-myung, left, and Kim Moon-soo cast their ballots during the first day of the two-day early election on May 29 for the 21st presidential election of Korea. [NEWS1]

Stocks barely respond

Unlike in previous elections, the so-called “election-themed stocks” are not drawing much attention this year. In 2022, a real estate company’s stock soared on speculation that it was linked to candidate Lee’s housing policies.

This time, after Kim was confirmed as the PPP candidate on May 12, the stock price of a car parts company run by a person from the same Kim family clan in Gyeongju briefly hit the daily upper limit. Some stocks tied to candidates’ past professions or birthplaces have also seen temporary gains.

Another auto parts firm, whose factory is located where candidate Lee once worked as a teenager, saw its share price jump from 4,000 won in March to over 12,000 won after the DP candidate’s nomination.

“Perhaps because this snap election came so suddenly, the stock market doesn’t seem interested in themed stocks — there really aren’t any noticeable ones,” said Jin Sung-hoon, head of the research and policy group at the Kosdaq Association.

From left: Lee Jae-myung of the Democratic Party, Kim Moon-soo of the People Power Party, Kwon Young-gook of the Democratic Labor Party and Lee Jun-seok of the Reform Party pose for a photo ahead of the second televised presidential debate on May 23 at the KBS studio in Yeongdeungpo District, western Seoul. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]

Experts say more focus needs to be placed on policy discussions to avoid turning the snap election into a haphazard one.

“The fewer the policy debates with voters, the weaker the election’s representativeness,” said Lee Joon-han, a political science professor at Incheon National University. “That’s why early elections require a stronger commitment to listening to public opinion.”

“More attention should be paid to minor parties, and those parties also need to find alternatives such as using social media campaigns to save costs,” said Kim Cheol-hyun, vice president of a local association of political commentators.

Translated from the JoongAng Ilbo using generative AI and edited by Korea JoongAng Daily staff.
BY KIM SEONG-JIN, LEE SU-MIN, PARK JONG-SUH [[email protected]]