Analyzing Patterns through the Korean Legislative Elections

Lee, Kwan Hu
Professor, Konkuk University

Results of the 22nd General Election

The 22nd general election for the National Assembly of Korea was conducted in April 2024. The results of the election showed a significant victory for the opposition, with the ruling People Power Party garnering 108 seats (including proportional representation), the leading opposition Democratic Party of Korea gaining 175 seats (including proportional representation), and the second opposition, the Rebuilding Korea Party, earning 12 seats. The number of seats won by the conservative People Power Party is the smallest since the country’s democratization in 1987.

Characteristics of Recent Korean Politics

Before discussing the election results, here are three key observations about the state of Korean democracy in recent years. First, democratic backsliding, a phenomenon also noted in more developed democratic countries, has become a reality in Korea. The symptoms of decline are: weakened competitiveness and fairness of democratic elections, lack of trust in the political process and political figures, heightened political polarization, voters’ frustration with political parties, indifference and aversion to politics, diminished connection and reactivity between representatives and voters, and a crisis of representation. The second is the undermining of party-centered politics. After Korea’s democratization, the country’s political parties rapidly changed from “class party” to “catch-all party” to “cartel party” to “electoral-professional party” to “populist party.” With time, negative perceptions of politics and political parties intensified, resulting in a decline in their functions. Electoral races morphed from party-centered to candidate-centered, and the parties’ policies were weakened, leading to a vicious cycle. Frequent party splits and consolidation have led to populist, figure (fandom)-driven parties. As a consequence, parties have become a mixture of propagandists and zealots, becoming election machines and turning away from maintenance of identity, competition on policy, and accountability. The third feature is the spread of political polarization. Identification with a party, which is a source of political polarization, is basically an “enduring psychological attachment” that voters hold to a specific party, and is the most critical variable accounting for political behavior, such as voter participation, vote choice, and attitudes toward political issues; this is an essential factor in the stability of a party system. In Korea the sense of identification with political parties is moving beyond ideological polarization to affective polarization. Partisanship based on political polarization has extended into the non-political realm, with over 50 percent of supporters of the two major political parties stating in a recent survey that they would never marry a supporter of the other party. Many people also tend to perceive those who favor a political party other than their own as intellectually inferior. Combined with populism and fandom, such emotional polarization is a leading factor in the distortion of party politics. Communication and negotiation are being undermined in politics, and extreme confrontational politics is elevated.

Aftermath of the 22nd General Election

The most significant change in party politics before the 22nd general election was the defection of previous leaders of the People Power Party and the Democratic Party of Korea. This could be interpreted as reinforcement of the presence in the party by the current president of the ruling party and the opposition candidate from the previous presidential election (the current party leader), thus removing former party leaders. This led to a rematch between the two previous presidential candidates of the two major parties.
In a presidential system, the general election in the midterm of a presidential election is a sort of halfway evaluation of the government. Over the past two years, the government has demonstrated its inability to manage the country’s affairs, with the Itaewon incident (158 people were killed at a festival), inadequate preparation for the Jamboree, and failure to bid for the Expo, contributing to its low approval ratings.
Shortly before the general election, the price of agricultural products increased significantly, creating an unfavorable climate for the ruling party. The appointment of a former defense minister, who is the subject of an investigation into the death of a soldier in the Marine Corps, to serve as an ambassador to Australia, sparked allegations that the government was trying to evade the investigation.
The leader of the main opposition party, the Democratic Party of Korea, has also been under constant investigation. The nominating process faced controversy over its fairness, as non-mainstream candidates were excluded. However, as the second opposition party, the Rebuilding Korea Party, gained support rapidly, the two parties eventually played a mutually reinforcing role, winning both local and proportional representation. Ultimately, they triumphed in the general election with their “judgement of the current regime” strategy.

Features of the 22nd General Election

This general election was not a competitive race, but a reflection of strong oppositional rhetoric, and it was a “disapproval election” where people voted because of their disapproval of the other candidate rather than their favorability toward their chosen candidate. Political (emotional) attitudes were highly polarized . Although “electoral democracy” – the assessment of a political force’s (party’s) competence to govern, its policy vision, and ideological orientation, based on fair and periodic elections – was effective, no clear political alternative was evident. Although judgment of the government and evaluation of the president's leadership were powerful motivators, expectations of the opposition were not high. Approval ratings for the main opposition party remained low both before and after the election, and the elections were framed as adversarial and judgmental, weakening the role of politics in representing and mediating social conflict. The 50 to 45 percent gap between the opposition and the ruling party makes it more likely that the politics of conflict will continue without dialogue or moderation.
Among the major changes in the election results was the collapse of a progressive party, which had regularly won about 10 seats since 2004, into an extraparliamentary party for the first time after two decades. As conservative populism has risen in Korea, progressive voters have grown more interested in empowering the center-left rather than voting for a separate progressive party. The progressive party has been unable to provide compelling policy alternatives over the past decade and has unsuccessfully attempted to replace its older generation. In this general election, the party became a marginal player, having repeatedly lost its base to center-left forces, and failing to reach the 3 percent minimum requirement for seats.