On the South Korean election of 2020
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the South Korean parliamentary election of 2020 still went ahead (albeit with some necessary social distancing measures in place for hygiene reasons), since South Korea is not on lockdown although they have asked many people to self-isolate, given that they are testing 25,000 people every day for COVID-19.
This election was a resounding win for South Korea's ruling party, the Democrats, who won 163 of the 253 constituency seats available; South Korea uses a combination of parallel voting and mixed member proportional representation for its elections. Its satellite party which only contested the 47 PR seats, the Together Citizens' Party, won 17. Unusually only 30 of the PR seats are compensatory seats as featured in MMP systems; the other 17 are by parallel voting meaning the constituency results do not affect these 17 seats (this compromise was necessary due to the opposition trying to blockade voting lobbies in protest against the electoral reforms of President Moon-Jae-in, which did not extend far enough since the severe imbalance between single member constituencies and PR list constituencies remains). This importantly gave them a total of 180 seats, not only the highest number in South Korean history but also just enough for a 3/5 supermajority. This is particularly important because the National Assembly Act of 2012 requires such a supermajority for any proposed legislation in South Korea which has far-reaching effects.
The conservative side of the South Korean political divide, meanwhile, had their worst election result in 60 years. The United Future Party and the Together Korea Party only lost a total of 9 seats, but the leader of the United Future Party, former South Korean Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-yahn, lost his own seat that election. This happened despite their vote share actually improving 3.2% at constituency level and 0.3% at party list level, because their liberal Democratic rivals increased their vote share by 12.9% at constituency level (just over quadruple the increase of the United Future Party, formerly known as the Liberty Korea Party and earlier Saenuri Party) and 7.8% at party list level. This happened due to the collapse of the People's Livelihoods party, a merger of three liberal-conservative parties: the Bareunmirae Party, the New Alternatives and the Party for Democracy and Peace. Beset by splits following the formation of that alliance and tactical voting, they managed to lose every single seat in that election and polled a miserable 2.7% of the vote. Four other small parties were also ejected from the South Korean National Assembly this election: the Minjung Party, criticised for being a continuation of the Unified Progressive Party which was banned for pro-North Korean stances, the hard right Our Republican Party (a key supporter of former President Park Geun-hye, who is currently serving a 25-year prison sentence for corruption), the Pro-Park New Party (very similar to the Our Republican Party) and the conservative Korea Economic Party, which supported former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in the 2016 South Korean presidential election. The social democratic Justice Party stayed on 6 seats, and two new parties entered the legislature having acquired their first seats by defection two years ago: The People's Party and Open Democratic Party won 3 seats each, all of which were PR seats. Most of the other parties polled less than 1% of the vote, with Our Party receiving the wooden spoon with only 6,779 votes, or 0.02%.
The liberal side of the South Korean political divide won primarily because of their excellent work in tackling the COVID-19 pandemic under the recent tenure of Chung Sye-kyun (appointed as South Korean PM by President Moon just three months ago), which avoided the lockdown seen in most of the rest of the world and instead went for rigorous testing. This also inspired a turnout increase of 8.2% to 66.2%, the highest in decades. Given that the liberal side (it has been represented by many different parties since South Korea came into existence as a nation in 1945 following the split of Korea into North and South shortly after it gained independence from Japan, which annexed Korea in 1910) rarely wins elections in this largely homogeneous and socially conservative country, significant political reforms will be on the horizon for South Korea after the COVID-19 pandemic ends.
This election was a resounding win for South Korea's ruling party, the Democrats, who won 163 of the 253 constituency seats available; South Korea uses a combination of parallel voting and mixed member proportional representation for its elections. Its satellite party which only contested the 47 PR seats, the Together Citizens' Party, won 17. Unusually only 30 of the PR seats are compensatory seats as featured in MMP systems; the other 17 are by parallel voting meaning the constituency results do not affect these 17 seats (this compromise was necessary due to the opposition trying to blockade voting lobbies in protest against the electoral reforms of President Moon-Jae-in, which did not extend far enough since the severe imbalance between single member constituencies and PR list constituencies remains). This importantly gave them a total of 180 seats, not only the highest number in South Korean history but also just enough for a 3/5 supermajority. This is particularly important because the National Assembly Act of 2012 requires such a supermajority for any proposed legislation in South Korea which has far-reaching effects.
The conservative side of the South Korean political divide, meanwhile, had their worst election result in 60 years. The United Future Party and the Together Korea Party only lost a total of 9 seats, but the leader of the United Future Party, former South Korean Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-yahn, lost his own seat that election. This happened despite their vote share actually improving 3.2% at constituency level and 0.3% at party list level, because their liberal Democratic rivals increased their vote share by 12.9% at constituency level (just over quadruple the increase of the United Future Party, formerly known as the Liberty Korea Party and earlier Saenuri Party) and 7.8% at party list level. This happened due to the collapse of the People's Livelihoods party, a merger of three liberal-conservative parties: the Bareunmirae Party, the New Alternatives and the Party for Democracy and Peace. Beset by splits following the formation of that alliance and tactical voting, they managed to lose every single seat in that election and polled a miserable 2.7% of the vote. Four other small parties were also ejected from the South Korean National Assembly this election: the Minjung Party, criticised for being a continuation of the Unified Progressive Party which was banned for pro-North Korean stances, the hard right Our Republican Party (a key supporter of former President Park Geun-hye, who is currently serving a 25-year prison sentence for corruption), the Pro-Park New Party (very similar to the Our Republican Party) and the conservative Korea Economic Party, which supported former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in the 2016 South Korean presidential election. The social democratic Justice Party stayed on 6 seats, and two new parties entered the legislature having acquired their first seats by defection two years ago: The People's Party and Open Democratic Party won 3 seats each, all of which were PR seats. Most of the other parties polled less than 1% of the vote, with Our Party receiving the wooden spoon with only 6,779 votes, or 0.02%.
The liberal side of the South Korean political divide won primarily because of their excellent work in tackling the COVID-19 pandemic under the recent tenure of Chung Sye-kyun (appointed as South Korean PM by President Moon just three months ago), which avoided the lockdown seen in most of the rest of the world and instead went for rigorous testing. This also inspired a turnout increase of 8.2% to 66.2%, the highest in decades. Given that the liberal side (it has been represented by many different parties since South Korea came into existence as a nation in 1945 following the split of Korea into North and South shortly after it gained independence from Japan, which annexed Korea in 1910) rarely wins elections in this largely homogeneous and socially conservative country, significant political reforms will be on the horizon for South Korea after the COVID-19 pandemic ends.
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