South Korea's National Assembly Election 2024: Decline Conservatives and Resurgence Progressives

   On April 10, South Korea held elections for a new National Assembly, electing 300 members. According to the results of the vote counting on the morning of April 11, the opposition progressivist camp won a big victory, with the Democratic Party of Korea and the Friendship Party gaining nearly 180 seats, expanding their advantage in the National Assembly, while the ruling Conservative Party gained only about 110 seats, a slight contraction from the current number of seats. In addition, the new party created by former Minister of Justice Cho Kook, the Rebuilding Korea Party did well in the election, winning 12 seats and becoming a key "third force".

   This means that South Korea's progressives have reversed the unfavorable situation of slumping public opinion after 2021 and losing the 2022 presidential election, regaining the recognition of the majority of the nation, as well as a deepening of the crisis of the ruling conservatives in power.

   In recent years, South Korea's political trajectory has been a roller coaster, with the two camps of progressives and conservatives repeatedly losing and losing ground. 2016, when then-President Park Geun-hye was impeached after being exposed to scandals of abuse of power and collusion with cultists, the conservative forces were in tatters, and the ruling party disintegrated and reorganized; the 2017 presidential election saw Moon Jae-in of the progressive camp in the National Assembly, who was elected to the National Assembly. In the election, Moon Jae-in of the progressive camp was elected and pushed for a series of reforms; in the 2020 National Assembly election, the ruling progressive camp also won a big victory in the National Assembly, and the government's reforms will be accelerated under the pattern of "big in the dynasty, small in the country". At the time, the progressives were even optimistic that they would be the ones to be elected president and control the majority in the National Assembly for the next two decades.

   However, the Moon administration's failure to effectively address high housing prices in Seoul, the obstruction of healthcare reforms, and the limited success of other reforms, as well as the exposure of a number of political scandals, such as Cho Kuk's self-interest, sexual harassment by Park Won-soon and Oh Joo-dun, and the corruption of the Korea Land Corporation, have had a huge impact on the image of the ruling party. In just over a year's time, the ruling Co-Democrats have been sliding down the polls, with their support rate going from far ahead of the conservatives to 10 percentage points lower than that of the conservatives. This is not only because of the progressives' ineffective reforms and frequent scandals, but also related to the voters' tendency to like the old and the new, and the pendulum law of politics.

   In the 2022 presidential election, progressive Lee Jae-myung lost to conservative Yoon Suk-Yeol by 0.73 percent. Although the progressives still hold a majority in the National Assembly by virtue of their big win in 2020, South Korea is a presidential system where the president has far more power than the National Assembly. Yoon Seok-Yeol's rise to power means that South Korea has returned to the conservative political path.

   Once Yoon Seok-yeol came to power, he focused on promoting the political agenda of South Korea's right-wing conservatives. On the domestic front, he emphasized more on the efficiency of economic development, pursued a pro-business and plutocratic tolerance stance, adopted a friendly policy towards big businesses and the elite, promoted tradition and family values, and suspended a series of pro-labor and pro-female policies of the Moon Jae-in era. Externally, Yoon Seok-Yeol has improved relations with Japan, gotten closer to the United States, and actively participated in the U.S.-Japan-South Korea alliance, while distancing himself from China.

   Yoon Seok-yul's series of domestic and foreign policies, while certainly pleasing right-wing conservatives, have not been able to gain the support of progressives and middle-of-the-road voters, whose satisfaction with his administration has hovered at 30-40 percent, with dissatisfaction at over 50 percent. Yoon's administration was also unable to solve the thorny problems faced by the Moon administration, such as the low birth rate, high housing prices in Seoul, and healthcare reforms that made it difficult to balance the interests of doctors and patients. And Yoon Seok-yul himself, his wife, and the top echelons of the ruling party have been exposed to a number of scandals. For example, his wife, Kim Kien-hee, was exposed for accepting designer bags and allegedly falsifying her education.

   As a result, after two years of Yoon Seok-hyup and the conservatives being in power, public opinion is gradually shifting away from the conservatives and back toward the progressives. The results of the current parliamentary elections reflect yet another leftward shift of the political pendulum in South Korea.

   As South Korea is a presidential system, a big victory for the progressives in the National Assembly will not bring back the ruling power, but will only maintain the "small dynasty, big opposition" pattern that has existed since 2020. But this election, the progressives have expanded their seat advantage, and polls once indicated that they might seize a two-thirds majority in the National Assembly, which made the call for amending the South Korean Constitution once again attracted widespread attention.

  Calls for amending the 1987 version of the Constitution of the Republic of Korea have long existed in South Korea. Although the Constitution of the Sixth Republic was the first constitution after the democratization of South Korea, which strongly guaranteed democracy and human rights, it also had a number of shortcomings.

For example, it is still characterized by the continuation of the presidential dictatorship during the authoritarian period, the electoral system is set up in favor of large parties and not in favor of small parties, important emerging issues such as gender equality and environmental rights are not included, and there is a lack of provisions guaranteeing the exercise of the right to direct democracy by the people in the form of referendums and other forms, etc. Compared with the new era of rapid social development and change and the higher political demands of the people, the "old" Constitution, which was enacted nearly 40 years ago, is already outdated.

   As a result, many South Koreans want to amend the content of the Constitution to weaken the power of the president, strengthen the checks and balances of various powers, modify the electoral system, guarantee the people's right to make decisions on referendums, and include the special rights of vulnerable groups and the history of civil disobedience in the Constitution. According to the Korea Joongang Ilbo, polls show that 66.5% of the people support amending the Constitution, while only 9.9% oppose it. However, in order to amend the Constitution, it requires the approval of more than two-thirds of the members of the National Assembly. For a long time, the conservatives, who hold more than one-third of the seats in the Diet, have disagreed with the direction and specific content of the constitutional amendment (some of the conservatives are simply opposed to the amendment), and the amendment has been unsuccessful.

   After this election, even though the progressives won a big victory, the conservatives still have more than one-third of the total seats. It will be very difficult for the constitutional revisionists to win the support of a two-thirds majority in the National Assembly, or at least 201 lawmakers. Therefore, South Korea's constitutional amendment process will remain on hold for a long time.

   In the current parliamentary election, the progressives won a big victory, clearing the gloom of successive setbacks in previous years and boosting the confidence of the opposition camp, but the impact on realpolitik is limited. The progressives may have to wait for the 2027 presidential election and win if they want to turn over the South Korean political situation and restart the progressivist reforms of the Moon administration. Merely holding the National Assembly can only impose some constraints on the Yoon Seok-yul government, but cannot fundamentally change its domestic and foreign affairs.

   But the shrinking number of seats for the ruling party in the National Assembly is still a wake-up call for the ruling Yoon Seok-yeol and the conservatives. Yoon Seok-yeol, who won the presidential election with a narrow majority, was already a shocker, and has been more criticized than praised since coming to power. Although it is common in democratic societies for those in power to be criticized more than praised, if Yoon Seok-yeol  and the ruling party fail to face up to the majority of public opinion and make strong reforms, it is feared that they will not only change the color of the presidency again in 2027, but also make the same mistake as many other South Korean politicians who failed to make a good end of their lives.

   Compared to other developed democracies, South Korea's political scene is characterized by more intense struggles, a greater dichotomy between progressives and conservatives, and a greater willingness on both sides to do whatever it takes to win. This undesirable political culture is due to the influence of Korea's historical grudges and traditional inertia, as well as the deformed political system. The president alone, the National Assembly is weak, the presidential party "winners all gain" (and vice versa "losers all lose"), is the most prominent drawbacks of the South Korean system of government. Therefore, the author tends to support South Korea's constitutional amendment and institutional reform.

   The political situation in South Korea over the past decades has been characterized by a great deal of volatility and many unexpected reversals. The winners of the moment often face various crises after coming to power, and even step down soon afterward; while the once defeated parties, which have been quietly developing in the civil society, are able to reintegrate and come back to power again in a few years' time. Therefore, whether it is the decadence of the ruling party or the resurgence of the progressives, the impact of this parliamentary election and the trend reflected in it are confined to a limited period of time and space. How the South Korean political situation will evolve in the future, we have to wait for a longer period of time, experience more events, and reveal more information and signs of wind direction, in order to more accurately analyze and verify.

(Cover photo from Yonhap News Agency)