The 2022 Presidential Election Autopsy

interview conducted and edited by Michael McGrath (Networking Team)

Translation by Dae-Han Song (Networking Team)

Kim Jong Min has been involved in South Korean progressive political parties for the past 20 years beginning with the Democratic Labor Party that had been established in 2002, followed by the last 10 years in the Justice Party. He is currently the co-President of the civil society organization Together Seoul and, in this past presidential election, he was in charge of the Strategy Headquarters for the Justice Party. 

Could you briefly give an overview of the recent presidential election which was won by conservative Yoon Suk-yeol?

The particular characteristic of this election was that if you asked someone what policies candidates stood for, few people would be able to give you an answer. So, then how did people decide? One very important aspect of this election was whether or not this would be a tribunal for the past president, Moon Jae-in. So, we can say that the first element that allowed Yoon to win was people wanting to put Moon “on trial.” 

Usually, voters align themselves with the left, the right, and the center. Usually, the election is decided by whether the center aligns with the left or with the right. In this case, most of the center aligned with the desire to punish Moon. That’s what allowed Yoon to win. So, it would have made more sense for Yoon to win by a 60 to 40 vote because there was such a strong feeling of punishing Moon. The fact that Lee Jae-myung lost by such a small margin means that, to some degree, the Lee Jae-myung campaign was effective.

South Korean friends of mine have compared Moon Jae-in’s presidency to Obama’s because he promised a lot and delivered little. Do you think there are similarities?

Yes, I would say they are similar. Moon came into power on the back of Park Geun-hye’s abuse of power. Before she was toppled, there were massive candlelight protests and a very strong demand for progressive reform. And of course, Moon made a lot of reform promises, but every year for the past five years he failed to deliver. And not only that, in some instances he even went backwards; in particular, the critical policy was the housing issue that displayed his incompetence. So, because of his failures, he created a strong feeling in the people of wanting to change the government. Like Obama, Moon Jae-in had the head of a dragon, and the body of a snake: he promised the world but failed to deliver.

It was reported that 58% of men in their 20s voted for the conservative party, and 58% of women in their 20s voted for the liberal party. What has caused this gender divide and how serious of a problem is it?

In Korean politics, there is a left, right, and center, but there are also other dynamics. We had regionalism like before with usually the Honam area supporting the Democratic Party of Korea or more progressive politics, then there’s the Gyeongnam area which supports the People Power Party (conservative) more. But in this election, the gender divide emerged almost as important as that. Of course, this is not a good dynamic when people vote based on what region they are from or based on what their gender is regardless of politics. It is a worrying and dangerous trend. We have this because gender discrimination in South Korea is relatively very high. And instead of trying to find solutions to gender inequality, you had people, such as Lee Joon-seok, the leader of the People’s Party, exploiting an anti-feminist sentiment. 

If you look at the last Seoul mayoral election - the special election that happened because Park Won-soon died in office. If we look at that, that's when this kind of dynamic started. Before that, nobody was really against gender equality. Perhaps the progressives were a little bit more active, and the conservatives were a little bit more passive, but nobody was actively against it. However, in that special election, what you saw is that there were men in their twenties who believed they had been reverse-discriminated that formed something like a political faction. And that's how Oh Se-hoon, the current mayor, was able to win. So, what you see is that they exploited that this time with Yoon Suk-yeol.

And of course, women in response are also grouped together. This time, more women voted for Lee Jae-myeong, who traditionally strongly supported Sim Sang-jeong, the Justice Party candidate.

Is this gender divide an issue which is likely to continue deep into the future?

This should not continue because clearly polarization by gender is not going to actually change anyone’s life - it's not going to improve their lives. But nonetheless, it is likely that the exploitation of such issues is going to continue by the political parties because of the Oh Se-hoon and Yoon Suk-yeol elections; it created and consolidated a political faction of men in their 20s.

And this also occurred with women in their 20s. So of course, this is going to become an important task that Korean politics needs to overcome. What is the source of this? It could be said that it's the lack of multiple parties - there's no plurality. What buttresses this dual-party system is the lack of runoff elections. So, when women in their 20s that traditionally voted for Sim switch over to Lee, what we get is people voting for one candidate to oppose another. You might not like Lee Jae-myung, but you voted for him in order to vote against Yoon Suk-yeol. This system further widens the divide.

What is Yoon Suk-yeol’s attitude towards the U.S., China, and North Korea going to look like?

In the TV debate, they asked the candidates “who will you meet first when you become president?”. Yoon said, first the U.S., then China and then North Korea. Lee said who he would meet is based on the circumstances, and Shim said she would meet North Korea first, and then the U.S. or China. 

If you look at Korea's relationship with the U.S., it has a military alliance. The relationship with China is an economic alliance. One can say that they're about equal in importance. If you look at Yoon, he's clearly pro-U.S. and he's going to maintain a distance with China, and he's going to try to isolate North Korea.

If we were to dig a little bit deeper, as regards military alliances with the US and Japan, the public might support an alliance with the US, but they oppose a military alliance with Japan. However, Yoon will pursue a military alliance with both the US and Japan. 

A source of worry and something that created great controversy during the elections was that Yoon said that if there was a military conflict, he’d allow Japan to intervene. So, of course the follow-up question is if there was a military conflict, would Japan be allowed to come into South Korea? This created a great controversy around Yoon. All this to say, Yoon will likely be closely allied with the U.S. and Japan.

What can the left in South Korea do going forwards to grow and to become more influential?

In Korea, the broad term “progressive” does not equal “left”. So “progressive” would be more like a broad term that encompasses “left” and “liberal”. While countries like the UK and Germany had labor movements which created the idea of progressives, in Korea, that wasn't the case. This notion of being progressive emerged alongside the emergence of democracy and its demands for reforms. So, in Korea, the left hasn't emerged independently until now. It was not based solely on the labor movement because in Korea, the unionization rate is around 10%. So, the unions by themselves didn't exercise political power. But what they did is they came together with other elements, like liberal elements, calling for reform. And then that's what came together to become the progressives.

In Korea there is this duality - there are two choices. Because of that, people are not necessarily voting for what they want, but they're instead voting against something. Therefore, it's very difficult for the Korean left to develop independently because of the current electoral system.

So, the task ahead would be to create a new base beyond the traditional base of workers, but also include feminist issues, climate justice, and inequality. We must keep our traditional base, but we also have to expand. Yoon will repress workers, so there will definitely be strong opposition to him. I think we need to use these movements to re-energize the left. 

How optimistic do you feel about the future?

Well, I'm just generally a positive person. So yeah, I guess I see things positively. But if you look at this election, it was negative, which just means that instead of actually standing for something, you just attacked the other person's family member or something like that. It was very much focused on mudslinging. It was also an election where people didn't really like either candidate. And during this time, people like workers or civil society, they should express a lot of their opinions, but they all became part of that party. And because of that, there was no such criticism. The question then becomes, what will happen when Yoon comes into power? Will that become an opportunity for this civil society voice to resurge again? If there is no such resurgence, then it will take a long time for things to get better. However, if we do have such a resurgence after Yoon comes into power, then our future looks brighter.