A week into official campaigns, the presidential race lacks the usual tension between major contenders, with opinion polls showing Democratic Party of Korea candidate Lee Jae-myung headed for a resounding victory even if the People Power Party and New Reform Party suddenly unite behind one candidate.
Hence, the June 3 early election will put the nation’s sharply polarized political sides at a crossroads. Will the People Power Party, the flagbearer of Korean conservatism and deeply entrenched vested rights, be able to rebuild from the shambles to emerge as a viable political force? Will Lee and his liberal allies seize their opportunity to install significant reforms that are broadly supported, overcoming the widespread distrust in their ability to govern with self-restraint?
These questions will need to be answered amid Democratic Party control of the National Assembly, which would afford Lee a “super” presidency.
The People Power Party will have to struggle under the dark cloud of ousted former President Yoon Suk Yeol. It fears that Lee’s super presidency will diminish their vested interests substantially. Indeed, Lee will have to mitigate the misgivings among the electorate that he may turn into a “ruthless populist.”
To calm concerns, Lee has repeatedly promised not to seek political revenge and to work for national unity. His position has veered from left-wing reformer to centrist pragmatist, saying, “A cat is a good cat so long as it catches mice well.” He has reiterated that he is willing to work with the most qualified individuals, regardless of their backgrounds and ideologies, emphasizing that drawing stark lines between liberals and conservatives is pointless. Some senior politicians who worked for the previous conservative administrations have answered by joining his campaign team.
Lee, who narrowly lost to Yoon in the 2022 election, obviously will be able to differentiate himself simply by acting more presidential. Yoon utterly lacked the skills for consensual democratic procedures. Nor did he understand post-Cold War politics. His penchant for outdated “Red Scare” ideology and conspiracy theories proliferating on right-wing YouTube channels fueled his ill-advised declaration of martial law and swift public rebuke that doomed his presidency.
The People Power Party’s intraparty fiasco surrounding its presidential primary was telltale evidence that it is deeply divided and has lost legitimacy as a democratic political entity. The party’s leadership employed unthinkable means in an aborted midnight maneuver to cancel Kim Moon-soo’s candidacy and replace him with Han Duck-soo, Yoon’s prime minister and interim caretaker of his administration, who was not even a party member. The debacle revealed the party’s unresolved ties with Yoon, who is undergoing trial on insurrection charges.
The choice of Kim as its presidential nominee moved the People Power Party further to the right, instead of correcting its course. Kim, who was Yoon’s labor minister, shares the impeached former president’s Cold War ideology and language. Not only that, he had also staunchly defended Yoon’s martial law declaration and opposed his impeachment. He is also closely linked to a far-right Protestant church, many members of which form not only his personal political base but an important part of his party’s support base.
Lee has his own political baggage. He has ongoing trials ranging from alleged bribery, perjury, charges linked to a development scandal while he was a city mayor, and involvement in an illegal money transfer to North Korea. The Supreme Court overturned an appellate court’s acquittal of Lee on charges of election law violations, then the latter court postponed all hearings on his trials until after the election. Lee denies all charges, asserting that they were politically motivated by Yoon’s prosecutorial cohorts.
Lee’s legal battles do not dent his popularity. Rather, his approval ratings have consistently climbed. His life story, rising from the fifth of seven children born to an impoverished farming family in a remote mountain village to become a human rights lawyer, mayor, provincial governor and legislator, resonates with many voters. He walked 16 kilometers round-trip to elementary school daily. Instead of attending middle and high school, he was an underage factory worker but still managed to pass college entrance exams.
“My miserable life has given me the strength to push forward through difficulties,” said Lee, who once aspired to be a “successful Bernie Sanders.” As a mayor and then a governor, he is recognized to have proven his ability to “get the job done.” “I have never made a promise that I could not keep,” he said.
After winning his presidential nomination with an unprecedented 89.77 percent of the votes, he declared, “I am ordered to end the old era of insurrection and regression and open a new era of hope.”
A formidable array of tasks awaits the nation’s next president who will take office the day after the election without a transition period. The “new era of hope,” as put by Lee, should come with long-pending changes: to bridge the deep political and economic divides in a super-aged society that has one of the world’s lowest birth rates, navigate the tectonic shift in the international order, and restart dialogue with North Korea to realize denuclearization and pave the groundwork for lasting peace on the divided peninsula.
Lee Kyong-hee
Lee Kyong-hee is a former editor-in-chief of The Korea Herald. The views expressed here are the writer's own. -- Ed.
koreaherald@heraldcorp.com
