South Koreans see politics as a choice

between two bad options

By The Economist / 31 Mar2021

Outside yeongdeungpo market in southern Seoul, a campaign truck awaits the

arrival of Park Young-sun, a former local mp and the mayoral candidate for the ruling
Minjoo party. Campaign aides in sky-blue windbreakers are awkwardly trying to
engage stallholders in conversation. In a small restaurant inside the market, patrons
are digging into chicken soup and spicy octopus, unaware of the political antics1
outside. The mood is jolly, helped along by swigs of makgeolli (rice wine). When
politics is raised, however, the jollity evaporates. “I’ve always voted Minjoo, but I’m
really disappointed with President Moon Jae-in,” says a 71-year-old. “All those
scandals. He said he was different but he let me down. He’s just like any other
politician.” The man dislikes the conservative opposition, but plans to vote for them in
the mayoral election anyway, as well as in the presidential election next year.

Four years into Mr Moon’s five-year term, such views are increasingly common. The
president’s approval rating is hovering around 35%, the lowest level since he took
office. His left-of-centre party is even less popular: Minjoo’s candidates are expected
to lose the mayoral by-elections next week in Seoul and Busan, the country’s two
biggest cities, by wide margins. If they do, it will not be because of inspired
campaigning by the opposition, which is barely more popular than Mr Moon himself.
The votes are widely considered a referendum on Mr Moon, and the overwhelming
mood is disappointment.

At one level, that reflects the usual fatigue towards the end of a government’s
tenure. Since presidents can serve only a single term, they inevitably become lame
ducks. But the disillusionment with Mr Moon and his party may be particularly acute
because he had promised to govern in a different way, says Kang Won-taek of Seoul

1 foolish, outrageous, or amusing behavior

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National University. “They said they would focus on fairness, but people can see
they’re just protecting their own.”

That by-elections are needed at all is a case in point. They became necessary
because Minjoo mayors in both Busan and Seoul were accused of sexual
harassment by female employees. Oh Keo-don, the former mayor of Busan, stepped
down last April. He admitted to some of the allegations and is awaiting trial on
related charges. Park Won-soon, the mayor of Seoul, committed suicide in July after
a female aide accused him of sexually harassing her for years.

Official contrition2 has been half-hearted. When prominent liberals attacked Mr

Park’s accuser, calling her a liar, the party did nothing to stop them. Meanwhile Mr
Moon’s former chief of staff published a screed3 on Facebook extolling4 Mr Park’s
virtues. Female voters, many of whom had hoped that Mr Moon would make good
on his promise to be a “feminist” president, are affronted. “I never really cared about
politics, but the Park Won-soon case made me so angry I’m going to vote for the
opposition,” says a 40-year-old office worker in Seoul. Women’s groups in Busan
persuaded candidates from both the main parties to sign a pledge to improve
women’s rights and to protect the ex-mayor’s victim once she returns to her job at
City Hall. “Will it help? We can only hope for the best,” says Lee Da-seol, a 20-
something who works with victims of sexual violence in the city.

Even those without feminist sensibilities have plenty of reasons for dismay. The
government’s failure to make housing more affordable has been compounded in
recent weeks by the revelation that officials from the agency in charge of new
housing developments had profited from inside information on big land deals. On
Monday Kim Sang-jo, Mr Moon’s top economic adviser and the architect of the
government’s flagship corporate-governance reforms, resigned after it emerged that
he had substantially raised the rent on a flat he owned two days before a new
tenant-protection law would have limited the increase. Covid-19 restrictions, a slow

2 the state of feeling remorseful and penitent

3 a long speech or piece of writing, typically one regarded as tedious
4 praise enthusiastically

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vaccine rollout and a sluggish economic recovery are eroding the goodwill the
government earned by managing the early stages of the pandemic well.

But voters are not enamoured5 with the conservative opposition, says Mr Kang
of snu. “If they win the mayoral elections,” he says, “it will not be the opposition’s
victory but the ruling party’s defeat.” That is mainly because the conservatives have
developed little in the way of new ideas or personalities since the previous president,
Park Geun-hye, was impeached for corruption four years ago. The voices of young
people and particularly of young women are woefully under-represented in both main
parties. Oh Se-hoon, the conservative candidate for mayor of Seoul, held the office
until ten years ago. “It says a lot that they haven’t found a better candidate in a
decade,” says Mr Kang. As the government stumbles and the opposition remains
stuck in its ways, disillusionment is likely only to deepen.

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