Well, the by-elections came and went. The results were about what everyone expected with one surprise. More on that in a moment, let’s see who won and lost (JoongAng):
The Grand National Party romped to another strong showing in legislative by-elections yesterday, adding at least three more seats in the National Assembly to their tally…
President Roh Moo-hyun’s Uri Party again was humbled, as it was in the May 31 local elections and two sets of by-elections last year.
Another Uri defeat
There is no way around it. Uri lost again. They have got to be feeling depressed right now. I am still calling for an Uri break-up (at least 20 seats in the National Assembly) by the end of the year. The party must be looking like a sinking ship to ambitious members who want to move up in the world or at least keep their seats after 2008.
The Grand National Party did not win
The JoongAng piece quoted above was wrong: The GNP did not pick up any seats. They had held those seats previously. That they blew their one chance for a pick-up yesterday should not give them any satisfaction.
The Democrats are back
The big news from yesterday’s elections was the reimergence of the Democrats in Seoul (Chosun):
In the Seongbuk-eul constituency, Millennium Democratic Party candidate Chough Soon-hyung beat opposition Grand National Party candidate Choi Soo-young. Chough’s election is expected to send shockwaves across the ruling party, since he played a leading role in the impeachment of President Roh moo-hyun in March 2004 and has said his victory in the by-election would mean the presidential impeachment was right. Uri Party candidate Cho Jae-hee, a former presidential secretary, trailed far behind.
This is potentially huge. If memory serves, the Democrats now have 10 seats in the National Assembly, which allows them to form a floor negotiating group and propose legislation.
More importantly, it shows that the Democrats can win outside of the Honam (southwest) region. If some members of the Uri party decide that it is time to jump ship, they now have a viable alternative.
Sorry Roh
The other big loser was President Roh Moo-hyun. Not only did his party lose another seat in the National Assembly, they lost it to one of the guys who led his impeachment and ran on that fact. That has got to hurt.
8 Comments
I hear tell that the MDP will only accept back previous members (ie. Uri defectors) if they do not include the three main instigators. Chung is hiding in Europe… and the other two are still around but I forget their names.
Next election, watch for the left to split their shrinking vote.
If I was the MDP I would say bullocks to any defectors and try to build a center support party.
I had speculated in a previous post that Goh Geun’s (spelling?) Plan A was to run as a fusion candidate for the Democrats and the new Citizen’s Centered Party but the later tanked in the local elections.
The Democrats and Uri will have to back the same guy next year or the GNP candidate will take the presidency in a walk.
Andy,
I think it’s optimistic to assume that there will be a single GNP candidate.
——————————————————————-
Chough’s election is expected to send shockwaves across the ruling party, since he played a leading role in the impeachment of President Roh moo-hyun in March 2004 and has said his victory in the by-election would mean the presidential impeachment was right.
——————————————————————-
I would imagine this would be more humiliating than losing to GNP?
I guess he won because he led the impeachment, otherwise, it would have been GNP, I’m sure of it. It’s obvious that S.Koreans are embarrassed by Roh’s Anti-American, suicidal tendency. Even Liberals aren’t that stupid over there.
These voters are restoring my faith in Korean’s sanity. I heard young Koreans are becoming more conservative these days, which is good.
——————————————————————–
The GNP won the three other seats. In Songpa-gap, GNP candidate Maeng Hyung-kyu beat the Uri Party’s Jong Gi-young. In Sosa, the GNP’s Cha Myeong-jin trounced Uri’s Kim Man-soo, a former presidential spokesman. Lee Joo-young was far ahead of Uri Party candidate Kim Sung-jin in Masan-gap.
——————————————————————–
Did they win these seats or are they holding onto it?
Well, It does look like GNP will win the coming Presidential Elections, and, I am glad people are coming back to some semblance of sanity.
Origami,
The fact that the ruling party is on the run doesn’t mean that it is likely to lose in 2007. In three out of the last four presidential elections, the candidate who trailed the polls for almost throughout the campaign season won because the favored party ultimately fragmented and/or the presence of a third candidate who changed the voting equation. In 1987 Roh Tae-woo won essentially because the opposition party splintered along DJ and YS; in 1997 DJ won because the ruling party fragmented along Lee Hoi-chang and Rhee In-je; and in 2002 Roh Moo-hyun won because of the presence of an alternative opposition candidate who later joined him against the overwhelming favorite Lee Hoi-chang. In Korean parties, it is personalities, not parties, that are the prime movers of presidential politics. If either Park Gun-hye or Lee Myung-bak leave the GNP (as they likely will) upon not being elected the GNP candidate then the Blue House is up for grabs, even if the Uri continues to become unpopular.
I know I sound like a broken record, but you really have to look at Korean politics in its cultural and historic context, rather than over-reacting to every surface change–however kaleidescopic they appear. A year or so ago, I warned in several op-eds against assuming that the South Korean body politic has lurched irreversibly Left; in fact, I even argued that the so-called “386 generation” was a journalistic fiction. Now that people are over-reacting the other way, I have to insist that it is ridiculously premature to assume that the Left is finished and that the GNP will win the Blue House in a walk.
On response #6, I meant: “In Korean politics, it is the personalities, not parties…”