Ostensibly the election is for 300 seats in the National Assembly, but when South Koreans go to the polls on Wednesday, they will be voting here to support one of two leaders bound by so-called “gladiator politics.” will be shown.
The desperate confrontation between President Yoon Seok-yeol and opposition leader Lee Jae-myung, who holds a majority in the National Assembly, made the election one of the most frightening and infuriating in South Korean history. Neither leader enjoys wide popularity, relying on hard-line supporters who want either Mr. Yun, a conservative who will be impeached for abuse of power, or Mr. Lee, a progressive who is imprisoned for corruption. ing.
“This election is about whether to punish Yoon Seok-yeol or Lee Jae-myung,” said Uhm Kyung-young, an election analyst at the Zeitgeist Research Institute in Seoul.
On the world stage, South Korea is a dynamic exporter of cars, phones, K-Pop, and K-dramas. However, domestic dissatisfaction among voters is deep-rooted. The country’s economy is slowing down. Its birth rate is the lowest in the world. Gen Zers, frustrated by growing economic inequality and being priced out of the housing market, find themselves the first generation in this country’s history to be economically poorer than their parents. I am concerned that this will happen.
Amid these fundamental crises, our country’s politics are more divided than ever. Online demagogy is rampant through YouTube and other social media, mainstreaming hate. In January, a disgruntled elderly man stabbed Lee in the neck with a knife. (According to a manifesto sent to Chu Ching from his cell, the gunman said South Korea was in a “state of civil war,” adding that he wanted to “decapitate” the country’s “pro-North Korean” leftists.) Woo, investigative journalist ) A few weeks later, angry young men attacked a ruling party lawmaker and hit him over the head with a rock.
Mr. Yoon’s and Mr. Lee’s parties have successively announced similar campaign promises on how to address issues such as the country’s dire birth rate. But analysts say the focus of their campaign was to demonize their rivals.
Korean politics has long been dominated by revenge and grudges, turning it into a vindictive “gladiator’s arena,” Sogang University political science professor Cho Yong-ho said in an analysis last month. The president, elected for a single five-year term, has often pursued criminal investigations against his predecessors and domestic rivals, creating a vicious cycle of political retaliation.
The first time Mr. Yoon and Mr. Lee clashed was in the 2022 presidential election, which South Korean news media characterized as a “fight between the unpopular.” Mr. Yun defeated Mr. Lee by a narrow margin. Since then, their rivalry has only intensified.
Under Yun, state prosecutors have pursued Lee, his wife and former aides in a series of investigations. Mr. Lee has been indicted on criminal charges including bribery, but he denies the charges. He has been denounced as a “criminal suspect” by Yun’s People’s Power Party and has not been able to secure an audience with the president to discuss policy.
Rather than retreat after his election loss, Lee returned to the center of politics within months. He won a seat in Congress, effectively giving him a political shield from prosecutors. Mr. Lee, who aims to run for president again in 2027, also tightened his grip on the Democratic Party.
Since then, he has made it his mission to fight against Yoon’s “dictatorship by prosecutors” and has been on a three-week hunger strike.
Mr. Lee’s party has refused to support Mr. Yoon as a ministerial candidate. Mr. Yoon vetoed National Assembly bills passed by Mr. Lee’s party, including one that would require an investigation into corruption allegations involving first lady Kim Kun-hee.
In parliamentary opinion polls, Koreans often vote for political parties and their leaders rather than individual candidates. Jeong Han-wool, a public opinion poll expert at the Korea People’s Research Institute, said about 20% of voters want Yun and Lee to be punished, and this election will ultimately be determined by how they vote. He said it was possible.
The Democratic Party’s victory, led by Lee, is due not only to its efforts to pass new legislation for a special prosecutor to investigate accusations of corruption and abuse involving Yun’s government and his wife, but also to his efforts as president. It will help restore potential.
Elections are primarily a contest between the two major political parties for a majority in parliament. But many small, unknown startups are also joining the fray. Candidates from Mr. Lee’s party and two smaller parties closely aligned with it have called for Mr. Yoon to be “punished” or turned into an early “lame” or “dead duck.” They are running an election campaign asking for it.
“If Yun loses the election, he will be unable to do much until the end of his term,” said Shin Yul, a political scientist at Seoul’s Myongji University.
Mr. Yoon and Mr. Lee come from completely different backgrounds, and their conflict is not only political but also cultural.
Yun, the son of a university professor, was an elite prosecutor who rose to the rank of prosecutor general before becoming president. His supporters praise him for strengthening ties with the United States in the face of North Korea’s nuclear threat. But his detractors call him a bogus elitist who favors the rich and uses coercive measures to silence critics.
Under Yun, prosecutors and police raided media outlets on suspicion of spreading “fake news.” State regulators reprimanded a TV station for not adding the Korean equivalent of “first lady” or “Mrs.” In the name of Mr. Yun’s wife. Yun’s bodyguards gagged and removed opposition politicians and students who shouted criticism of Yun during government and university events. In its 2024 Democracy Report, Sweden’s V-Dem Institute ranked South Korea under Yun’s government as one of 42 countries with increasing “authoritarianism.”
The son of a public toilet cleaner, Lee worked as a sweatshop worker in rubber and glove factories as a teenager before becoming a labor lawyer, mayor and governor. His supporters see him as an outspoken outsider who can correct establishment politics. But his critics describe him as a sinister populist who cut corrupt deals and quashed dissent within his party in an effort to consolidate power during his tenure.
Mr. Lee is currently on trial for allegedly providing illegal favors to private investors in real estate projects while he was mayor. Another accusation made by prosecutors is that while he was governor, he asked a local businessman to illegally transfer $8 million to North Korea to facilitate economic exchanges with the state.
Many analysts expect the country to become even more polarized in the next election.
Cho, from Sogang University, said, “Politics will continue to be dominated by conflicts between those who want to kill and those who want to survive.” “Issues that the people care about, such as their daily lives, the economy, the declining birthrate, and welfare, are being put on the back burner.”
