South Korea’s Democratic Party Appears Set to Win Parliamentary Election; What’s Next for Korea?
This should come as no surprise to people following this topic that the ruling Democratic Party in Korea is expected to win the parliamentary election that just occurred:
The ruling Democratic Party (DP) is forecast to win a majority of parliamentary seats in Wednesday’s elections as voters apparently supported the government’s efforts to contain the new coronavirus.
South Korea held the quadrennial parliamentary elections to fill the 300-member unicameral National Assembly — with 253 directly contested seats and 47 proportional representation (PR) slots — in the midst of the country’s battle against the COVID-19 pandemic.
As of 11:24 p.m. when 58.2 percent of the votes had been counted, the DP had taken the lead in 154 constituencies across the nation, followed by the main opposition United Future Party (UFP) with 94 districts, according to the National Election Commission (NEC), the state election watchdog.
If combined with potential PR seats to be distributed to the Platform Party, the DP’s satellite party that only targets PR slots, the ruling bloc may be able to secure around 170 parliamentary seats.
South Korea’s general elections have been closely watched from overseas as the country became the first major country to hold nationwide polls since the COVID-19 crisis began sweeping the globe.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link, but the ruling party had a number of factors going for them to ensure they won the election. The coronavirus response by the Moon administration is obviously the most prevalent. The administration overall did a good job handling the pandemic and even the areas where they obviously screwed up they did not have to worry about a partisan media continuing to hype it like what you see in the US with the Trump administration.
The Moon administration very early on in their tenure made sure to take control of most of the media in the country to include jailing journalists who publish articles they do not agree with. This led to largely positive domestic and then international press coverage even though the administration’s pandemic response was not as strong as other countries in the region.
The ruling party also passed an election law bill that ultimately allowed them to increase the amount of unelected proportional parliament members. The Democrat Party then went and created satellite parties that shared their same ideology to take these proportional seats. This effectively decreased the amount of seats their conservative rivals could win in the elections.
Then you throw in the online opinion rigging to include the Democratic Party reportedly being backed by China’s 50 Cent Army it should come as no surprise they were able to win the parliamentary elections. What we have to wonder about is what comes next? Will the Korean left use their political power to try and change the ROK constitution to give President Moon another term in office? Or will they also use it to advance their Kaesong and Gumgang Resorts projects and ultimately their confederation ideas with North Korea? I guess we will find out over the next two years of what will largely be an unchecked Moon administration.
South Korea commits suicide. Watch a country kill itself.
The Korean Confederacy and President Cho Kuk.
“their confederation ideas with North Korea?” Confederation is not an idea of the South Korean leftist, Confederation was first proposed by nKorea in the early 70’s. This is a commie nKorean plan re-invigorated by the South Korean left.
“North Korea’s policy is to seek reunification without what it sees as outside interference, through a confederal structure retaining each side’s leadership and systems. In 1973, it proposed forming a Confederal Republic of Koryo that would represent the Korean people in the UN. North Korean President Kim Il-sung elaborated on the proposed state (then called Democratic Confederal Republic of Koryo) on October 10, 1980, in the Report to the Sixth Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea on the Work of the Central Committee. Kim proposed a confederation between North and South Korea, in which their respective political systems would initially remain. (From the oh so reliable Wiki)
Any country can vote its way into Socialism; but will always need to shoot its way out.
Gordon Chang states this could be the last election that was held in S. Korea (ref the two-thirds majority the progressives now have). The ousting of the US and reunification with the north are next on the list.