President Yoon needs to figure out how to decrease inflation and improve Korea’s overall economic outlook. I think that is what what voters were telling him with this election defeat for his political party:
President Yoon Suk Yeol has vowed to reform state affairs to reflect people’s will following the ruling party’s crushing defeat in the parliamentary elections, the presidential office said Thursday.
“I will humbly accept the will of the people expressed in the general election, and will strive to reform the administration and do my best to stabilize the economy and enhance people’s livelihoods,” Lee Kwan-seop, presidential chief of staff, quoted him as saying during a press conference.
Prime Minister Han Duck-soo as well as three senior presidential aides, including Lee, offered to step down to take responsibility for the election defeat, according to the office.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link, but expected grid locked government for the next three years of Yoon’s term because he will need help from the DPK to get any legislation approved. This very unlikely to happen considering the hostile relationship between Yoon and the DPK’s leader Lee Jae-myung.
It looks like Cho Kuk has made his revenge politically against President Yoon for previously prosecuting him and his family for corruption:
One notable winner from the election is former Minister of Justice Cho Kuk, the leader of the Rebuilding Korea Party (RKP), a major third party that is projected to win twelve seats. He was previously forced to resign as justice minister and sentenced to two years in detention (he has yet to go to prison) over a scandal involving allegations of him falsifying records. He returned to politics under his newly formed party just a month before this election.
The RKP gained support largely from middle-aged, progressive Koreans who strongly oppose the PPP but are also fed up with the ineffectualness and unceasing corruption scandals within the DP. Cho has set himself up to be an important kingmaker in the National Assembly and will most likely cooperate with the DP to obstruct Yoon’s agenda. He opposes Yoon not on ideological grounds but also bears a personal grudge against Yoon for prosecuting him on corruption charges. In addition, Cho had promised to investigate First Lady Kim Keon-hee for alleged stock manipulation if DP and his party won enough seats.
Council on Foregin Relations
You can read more at the link, but those his party was only formed a few weeks ago it looks like he could win up to 15 seats in the parliament making him a potential king maker for the Democratic Party who is in the majority.
The PPP has once again failed to make any strong gains in the Korean parliament:
This combined photo shows officials of the main opposition Democratic Party (L), including it leader Lee Jae-myung, clap at the National Assembly in Seoul on April 10, 2024. In contrast, officials of the ruling People Power Party, including its interim leader Han Dong-hoon, look gloomy at the National Assembly in Seoul on April 10, 2024. (Yonhap)
The main opposition Democratic Party (DP) was certain to retain a majority in the National Assembly in Wednesday’s general elections in a major setback for the ruling People Power Party (PPP) and President Yoon Suk Yeol.
Contrary to TV exit polls, however, the broader opposition bloc was expected to fall short of a two-thirds majority or at least 200 seats as the PPP was expected to secure about 110 seats in the 300-member National Assembly.
With more than 90 percent of the ballots counted in 254 constituencies as of 3 a.m. Thursday, the DP was leading in 160 districts, including many in the Seoul metropolitan region, while the PPP was ahead only in 91 districts, mostly in its stronghold in the country’s southeast.
Up for grabs are 300 seats in the National Assembly, with 46 of them to be allocated to the parties according to their proportion of the vote. Of the votes cast for proportional seats, more than 60 percent have been counted.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link, but if President Yoon was looking for any electorial mandate for his policies from the election he clearly did not get it.
I don’t understand how this guy even thought his joke was funny in anyway?:
Former Democratic Party lawmaker Chung Bong-ju declares his candidacy for the April elections at the National Assembly on Jan. 8, 2024. (Yonhap)
The main opposition Democratic Party (DP) on Friday canceled the nomination of an ex-DP lawmaker over his past remarks ridiculing South Korean soldiers who lost their legs in a 2015 bloody land mine explosion are stirring up criticism weeks before the April parliamentary elections.
Chung Bong-ju was selected as DP candidate for Seoul’s Gangbuk-B constituency but he has been criticized for the comments he made on a YouTube channel in 2017 about the highly publicized incident for which a South Korean probe later concluded North Korea was responsible. (….)
The panel on the YouTube channel was talking about ways that the two Koreas could use the ski resorts in the North ahead of the PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games that the South was hosting.
Appearing as a guest, Chung said: “We have great stuff in the DMZ, don’t we? Ankle mines. We could all go into the DMZ and give out prizes. Give a set of crutches to each of those who step on the mines.”
Chung’s remarks have come into the spotlight since he won the party primary.
In a Facebook post Wednesday, Chung issued an apology over the comments and said he also apologized to the victims over the phone and deleted the YouTube clip.
But the soldiers told some local media that Chung has never contacted them, much less given an apology.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link.
This is an example of leftists defending leftists using these so called research groups. This group in Sweden claims autocracy is returning to Korea though Yoon replaced the left wing Moon administration that sent two prior conservative Presidents and numerous journalists to jail. I guess in the leftist world view sending political rivals and journalists to jail is a sign of democracy. Will this group upgrade South Korea’s democracy ranking if Yoon follows the lead of the leftists and sends his political rivals and journalists to jail?:
Korea has experienced a “downward slope” in its democratic process since President Yoon Suk Yeol took office, according to a Sweden-based political science research institute. The regression is attributed to the government’s measures to penalize figures associated with the previous administration, its assaults on gender equality, and its undermining of freedom of expression.
The Democracy Report 2024 released Thursday by the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Institute at the University of Gothenburg stated that Korea scored 0.6 on the Liberal Democracy Index (LDI) and ranked 47th among 179 countries in the world for its level of democracy.
Korea Times
You can read more at the link.
Normally a 39.2% approval rating would be a bad thing, but for President Yoon it is actually a sign of improvement:
President Yoon Suk Yeol’s approval rating rose slightly to 39.2 percent from a week earlier, a survey showed Monday.
According to the Realmeter survey, the positive assessment of Yoon’s performance rose 1.9 percentage points from the week earlier, while the negative assessment fell 1.7 percentage points.
Korea Herald
You can read more at the link.
Here are some interesting comments from President Yoon on the First Lady’s handbag scandal:
President Yoon Suk Yeol said Wednesday that first lady Kim Keon Hee failed to “cold-heartedly reject” a visitor armed with a hidden camera, speaking for the first time on allegations she accepted a luxury handbag from the man in 2022.
Yoon said in an interview with KBS TV that the bag was given to her as a “political maneuver” as it was filmed with a camera hidden inside a watch and the footage was only released last year ahead of an election year.
“The fact that she was unable to cold-heartedly reject him was the problem, if one can call it a problem, and it is a little regrettable,” he said. The interview was filmed on Sunday and aired Wednesday night.
Yonhap
Here are the details on how this was a planned political setup:
Yoon had come under growing pressure to address the allegations surrounding the first lady, even as his office maintained the Christian Dior bag, valued at around 3 million won (US$2,200), was given to her by a Korean American pastor in September 2022 as part of a premeditated hidden camera trap.
The issue was seen as a liability for the ruling party ahead of the April 10 parliamentary elections, as the incident occurred after Yoon took office as president in May 2022.
Yoon said in the interview that the incident took place when the couple were still living at their private apartment unit in southern Seoul, where his wife kept an office in the basement, before moving into the new presidential residence.
He suggested the pastor visited her at the office after claiming to have had ties with her late father and insisting that they meet.
“From now on, now that we have moved into the residence, not only will such things be managed well, but I think we will have to be clear so as not to cause any misunderstandings or anxieties or concerns among the people,” he said.
You can read more at the link, but the First Lady early in the administration was still living in their private home without a staff that would normally vet and advise on visits like this. When Kim Keon-hee was given the bag she seemed surprised which demonstrates she was not expecting it and thought this was only going to be a meeting with a pastor her father supposedly knew.
The fact this camera trap was executed early in Yoon’s presidency in 2022, but released shortly before the 2024 elections shows how this was a political setup to infleunce the upcoming election. President Yoon has made it clear there is a process in place now to prevent political setups like this from happening again.
