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Fixing the Cracks: South Koreans Go to the Polls Hoping to Move On 

SOUTH KOREA 

On Tuesday, South Koreans are voting to choose their next president. And after the ballots are counted, many hope that six months of rolling turmoil will come to an end, and that sanity will return to the country.  

But will it? Analysts are not so sure.  

The problem, some say, is that while the election may usher in political stability in the government, it won’t end the deep polarization of society that some believe led South Korea to six months of political chaos in the first place.

“South Korea’s political polarization is deep and can be traced to a combination of historical and institutional factors, such as decades of authoritarian rule, rapid democratization and economic changes…,” Min Seong-jae of Pace University in New York told Deutsche Welle. “But currently, the level of polarization seems to be the worst ever…That makes the future look tense and divided – not quite ‘grim,’ but definitely rocky.”   

Tuesday’s snap election was called after President Yoon Suk Yeol of the conservative People Power Party (PPP) was officially removed from power after the Constitutional Court upheld his impeachment on April 4 for violating the constitution. Yoon shocked the country in early December when he declared martial law for the first time in almost four decades, claiming that the opposition-controlled parliament was threatening the country’s security. The declaration of martial law was overturned a few hours later by lawmakers.  

Since then, the country has seen Yoon’s impeachment, arrest, and indictment on insurrection charges, as well as the impeachment of the acting president who replaced him. It has witnessed months of protests by Yoon supporters, some of whom have alleged election fraud in the last election, and his opponents. It has been led by four presidents in the past six months.  

The political instability in the past six months has battered consumer and business confidence, pushing Asia’s fourth-largest economy to contract in the first quarter just as US President Donald Trump threatened tariffs on its imports, which would negatively impact future growth, wrote Bloomberg. 

Now, the election “offers to be a potential turning point that either brings stability to the political realm and markets after months of chaos or deepens painful divisions within the nation,” it added.  

Currently, Lee Jae-myung of the main opposition party, the center-left Democratic Party, has a wide lead in the presidential race, recent polls show.  

Lee narrowly lost to Yoon in 2022, but enjoyed a majority in parliament that he used to stall Yoon’s policy initiatives. He has also been at the forefront of the effort to oust Yoon and see him impeached.  

Lee, meanwhile, is fighting bribery and other charges mostly linked to a $1 billion property development scandal that had threatened to disqualify him from the elections. However, the courts agreed to push back hearings in the trials until after the vote. He denies all charges.  

He was also recently acquitted of election law violation charges by an appeals court. 

Coming in a distant second is Kim Moon-soo of the PPP, which has been tarnished by Yoon’s martial law declaration. Kim opposed Yoon’s impeachment even though members of his party supported it and also helped defeat the martial law attempt by the former president. The party, meanwhile, has had serious internal squabbles that spilled into public view, disappointing its supporters.  

“The PPP is just a mess, they are self-destructing,” Lee Jung-ja, a 52-year-old voter, told the Guardian. “Even if they unite, it still won’t be enough. All they’re doing is fighting with each other.”  

The spoiler for conservatives is Lee Jun-seok, a former PPP leader, who is running as the candidate of the recently formed, right-wing Reform Party. He is currently polling in third place. 

Meanwhile, despite the dizzying political crises of the past six months, the election is still mainly focused on kitchen-table issues, such as addressing record-high youth unemployment, alleviating a housing and cost-of-living crisis, and reversing dismal economic growth. 

Commentators say that it is time for South Koreans to unite and focus on these issues and others instead of “partisan reflexes” because the country has reached “an inflection point.” 

“The next president will inherit more than a fractured government,” wrote the Korea Herald. “They will inherit the responsibility to restore institutional trust, re-anchor the economy, and navigate an increasingly volatile global order. The task ahead is formidable.”  

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