South Korea is holding its legislative elections on April 15, the first major national vote amid the coronavirus pandemic. Here is what you need to know.

The Vote Must Go On

The National Assembly Building in Seoul. (WIkimedia Commons)

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted political calendars around the world, causing delays to elections on every continent (except Antarctica) beginning in mid-March. Despite this, South Korea is going ahead with its scheduled election after some debate over postponement, with health and safety precautions being taken at the polls. Elections have never been postponed in the history of South Korea, even during the Korean War in 1952, and this year’s vote appears to be no exception.

As of April 14, South Korea has more than 10,500 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 222 deaths. However, the number of new daily infections in the country has significantly declined recently, with the reported daily numbers consistently being below 50 the week before the election, leading to cautious optimism that the country may have “passed the peak” of infections. Nevertheless, health authorities in South Korea urged people to keep up social distancing and avoid letting their guard down.

Polling stations across South Korea are being disinfected regularly while voting is open, and voters will have their temperatures checked at the door. Those with fevers will be directed to a special voting booth. Voters are provided with hand sanitizer and gloves at the voting booths and are required to keep a distance of one meter while waiting in line. Electoral regulations are also relaxed to allow voters diagnosed with COVID-19 to vote by mail or use early voting stations set up at patient centers beginning on April 10.

Abroad, however, the National Election Commission of South Korea had to shut down voting for overseas citizens held from April 1 to 6 at 91 missions due to the spread of COVID-19 in those regions, impacting more than 87,000 eligible voters, half of the electorate overseas.

Regardless, many South Korean voters have taken the opportunity to vote early. The turnout for early voting reached a record high of 26.7 percent, double that of the parliamentary election in 2016, which was 12.2 percent.

President Moon Jae-in of South Korea (Wikimedia Commons)

Electoral Reform

South Korea’s National Assembly is a unicameral legislature with 300 members. Elections are held every four years, with the last election in 2016 resulting in the liberal Democratic Party pulling off an upset and winning a one-seat plurality over the then-ruling conservative Saenuri Party.

Since the establishment of the Sixth Republic in 1987 and the country’s transition to a liberal democracy, the National Assembly is elected using a mixed system, with a majority chosen by single-member constituencies on a first-past-the-post basis and the rest by closed party lists through proportional representation (PR) by the Hare quota. In the last election in 2016, 253 members were from single-member constituencies, and 47 were from proportional party lists. Voters are given two ballots after a change forced by a 2001 Constitutional Court ruling: the first with the local candidates for the single-member district and the second for a national party vote.

Under a revised electoral law passed by President Moon Jae-in’s government in December 2019, however, the method of distribution for the PR seats was changed to better reflect the share of the vote and boost underrepresented minor parties. The legal voting age was also lowered from 19 to 18. Under the new law, which was drafted primarily by the minor parties with Moon’s Democratic Party lending conditional support, a mixed-member PR was introduced. The new system allows 30 of the 47 party list seats to be selected in a compensatory manner, correcting for the disproportionality caused by the former system, with the seats going to parties winning fewer seats via electoral districts than they would receive according to their proportional representation. The remaining 17 would still be allocated through the original system.

While the new system theoretically could have been an advantage for the smaller parties, the two main parties have created their own “satellite parties” that are competing only for party-list seats and will likely merge with the main parties after the election. This would likely result in an undermining of the electoral chances of minor parties, contrary to the spirit of the reforms, with some of their candidates even defecting to the new satellite parties.

Issues at Hand

Prior to the COVID-19 crisis, support for the Moon administration had been faltering after he failed to deliver on many of his key campaign promises, with his approval rating in December 2019 at only 47 percent, according to Gallup. Moon backtracked on his promise to reduce working hours, and he has not yet managed to rein in real estate speculation or reduce air pollution. Attempts at raising the minimum wage and advancing corporate sector reforms have also been lackluster. Moon also failed in his efforts to abolish the 1948 National Security Law—which allows prosecution of speech and assembly supporting North Korea and has been abused by past military regimes—in spite of his past record as a human rights lawyer. Slowing economic growth, high youth unemployment, and growing income inequality also added to declining support for the ruling Democratic Party.

Analysts say one of the reasons the Moon administration has failed to effect real political change domestically despite public support is South Korea’s political system itself, in which the major parties are coalesced around powerful individuals rather than political ideologies. This has historically resulted in the frequent dissolution and restructuring of political parties, as well as many politicians’ constant change of party affiliations.

On the foreign policy front, despite Moon’s efforts, he ended 2019 with few noteworthy accomplishments. Improving the relationship with North Korea and initiating closer economic cooperation had been a key goal of his administration, a clear departure from his conservative predecessors’ hardline attitudes. Yet despite three inter-Korean summits at the North-South border in 2018, a historic summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump in Singapore in 2018, and a subsequent summit in Hanoi, Vietnam, between the two in February 2019, talks soon broke down. While Moon attempted to revive the dialogue and briefly succeeded with an impromptu meeting between Kim and Trump at the North-South border in June 2019, later talks in Stockholm in October broke down once mofd, and the year ended with Pyongyang warning ominously of a “Christmas gift” for Trump (though nothing came of it).

The June 2019 summit between Kim, Moon, and Trump at Panmunjom on the North-South border. (Wikimedia Commons)

Relations with Japan have also deteriorated after Tokyo announced export controls on chemicals crucial for South Korea’s semiconductor industry, a measure widely seen as retaliation for South Korea’s Supreme Court ruling in 2018 on compensation to victims of Japanese forced labor and sex slavery (commonly called “comfort women”) during World War II. The dispute soon escalated with Koreans boycotting Japanese products and Seoul announcing its decision to end the country’s intelligence-sharing pact with Japan. The latter development caused U.S. officials to mediate high-level talks between Japan and South Korea, though the trade dispute is still ongoing.

Were it not for the COVID-19 crisis, the conservative opposition was poised to make gains in the April elections, making Moon a lame-duck for the last two years of his five-year term. At the beginning of the epidemic in South Korea, the opposition managed to cast the government’s efforts as ineffective due to the administration’s refusal to close borders as well as the mass outbreak centered around the Shincheonji Church in the southeastern city of Daegu in late February. Yet the opposition’s strategy backfired as the government response turned out to be effective after all, with the large-scale testing and reorganization of the medical system to minimize people-to-people infections at hospitals, largely thanks to the lessons learned from the 2015 MERS outbreak in the country. The government’s success in “flattening the curve” earned praise both abroad and domestically and put the opposition on the defensive.

The economy, social issues, and North Korea might once have been expected to be the focus of the election, but all have now generally faded into the background due to the pandemic, with COVID-19 becoming the central issue for voters. As a result, the election is likely to “serve as a referendum on the sitting government’s COVID response efforts,” according to John Delury, a professor at Yonsei University in Seoul.

The Major Parties

Democratic Party of Korea: The main liberal party, its current iteration was formed in 2014. The party has its main support in the western regions of South Korea, particularly the capital, Seoul. Historically, the southwestern Honam region was also a liberal stronghold, with the main city, Gwangju, being the site of a pro-democracy uprising that was brutally suppressed by the military government in 1980. However, in 2016 the centrist People’s Party, which splintered from the Democratic Party, managed to win most seats in the region in an upset, raising questions about the continued relevance of regionalism in South Korean politics. Together Citizens’ Party is the Democratic Party’s satellite party on the party-list ballot.

United Future Party: The main conservative party, it was formed in February 2020 from a reunited conservative bloc that had fractured in the aftermath of the impeachment and removal of President Park Geun-hye of the conservative Saenuri Party in 2017. Its main support historically comes from the eastern regions of South Korea, particularly the southeastern Yeongnam region, which had disproportionately benefited from development projects in the post-war economic boom. Future Korea Party is the United Future Party’s satellite party on the party-list ballot.

Party for People’s Livelihoods: A centrist party formed from three smaller parties in February 2020, two of which split from the centrist liberal People’s Party (based in Honam), the other was itself a merger of the People’s Party and the conservative Bareun Party (based in Yeongnam).

Justice Party: A progressive and social democratic party founded in 2012 as a breakaway from the United Progressive Party, which was later banned in 2014 for allegedly supporting North Korea under the National Security Law, the Justice Party advocates for the creation of a welfare state and the protection of labor rights, as well as ending all forms of discrimination.

Minjung Party (People Party): A progressive party founded in 2017 as a merger of two left-wing parties, it is considered the successor of the United Progressive Party, and it is not to be confused with the centrist People’s Party.

People’s Party: The center-right party was founded in February 2020 by Ahn Cheol-soo, who ran as an independent candidate for president in 2012. Ahn helped found the 2014 iteration of the Democratic Party, quit after conflict with Moon in 2015, and then was a presidential candidate in 2017 for the centrist People’s Party. It is not to be confused with the centrist People’s Party that merged into the Party for People’s Livelihoods. It is only running on the party list ballot.

Open Democratic Party: A liberal party founded in March 2020, it views the ruling Democratic Party as too conservative. It is only running on the party list ballot.

Our Republican Party: A right-wing party, it was founded by supporters of former president Park Geun-hye in March 2020.

Korea Economic Party: A liberal-conservative party, it was founded in 2016 originally to endorse former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for the presidential election.

What Next?

Most observers expect the Democratic Party to maintain and increase its majority in the National Assembly, with the latest Gallup poll from April 8 showing 44 percent support in constituency votes and 23 percent support for its satellite party in the proportional votes. In contrast, the United Future Party only has 23 percent support in constituency votes, and its satellite party only draws 22 percent of PR votes. Most other minor parties are unlikely to be competitive, with the greatest support being for the Justice Party at six percent in the constituency votes and 13 percent in the PR votes. The Open Democratic Party also has eight percent, and the People’s Party six percent support in PR votes, according to the poll.

With Moon’s approval rating increasing dramatically to 54.4 percent, and the Democratic Party apparently maintaining a strong lead (the historical Democratic stronghold of Honam has seen the largest turnout in early voting), Moon is likely to benefit from a mandate to try and fulfill his unfulfilled promises. But, North Korea has fired off yet another barrage of missiles on the eve of election day, and it remains to be seen whether Moon’s overture to the North can bear fruit.