Another by-election, another set of losses for Uri (The Hankyoreh):
In Incheon’s Namdong-eul district, Lee Weon-bok of the main opposition Grand national Party was elected by receiving 57.7 percent of the votes counted, defeating candidates from the Democratic Labor Party and Uri Party, who gathered only 18.5 percent and 12.2 percent, respectively.
Chae Il-byung of the minor opposition Democratic Party won the election in the Haenam-Jindo district in South Jeolla Province with 64.4 percent of the ballots counted, defeating the Uri Party’s Park Yang-soo, who earned only 28.6 percent.
It is interesting that the DLP pulled second in Incheon. In any future party realignment, they might stand to gain support in urban districts, especially if Goh Kun succeeds in putting together a moderate party from the Democrats and remnants of Uri to challenge the GNP.
This has also got to hurt (Korea Times):
In Wednesday’s by-elections, the party failed to win a single seat, continuing its fourth consecutive defeat in by-elections in the past two years. Of 40 seats up for grabs since last year, the party has not been able to win one.
While my long-state prediction (first made in mid-2005) that Uri would break up by the end of this year looks pretty shaky, I still think its plurality in the National Assembly will not last long.
BTW, I have a new blog: South Korean Politics and Elections. It’s main purpose is…
…for me to have a place to catalog news and information on Korean politics.
If anyone has information on interesting political news or sites, please leave a comment with a link there.
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9 Comments
Your prediction may be off m8. There is the chance it was aimed in the wrong direction. Perhaps Hanarah will split after nominations, with Lee taking the center and Park taking the far right. If this hapnes, we better hope that Minju has a resurgence on the left, or we’ll be stuck with these Uri suckers for another 5 years.
Uri is popular in certain North Korean quarters, where they have delivered for the people they serve.
Most of Uri leaders were ideologues born in the 60’s, went to college in 80’s. Most of them spent their college years, violently demonstrating first, against Chun Doo Hwan, then Rho Tae Woo, then Kim Yong Sam. Even when Kim Yong Sam’s government came to power in a fair democratic election, these Uri leaders were throwing molative cocktails at 20 year old military conscripts. They were pro-North Korean, anti-South Korean government and anti-American. Now that they came to be the power - this is their fruit of labour.
Yay! Go (away) Uri Party! Hopefully Goh Kun will creat a broad-based party that puts the last nail in the “sunshine boys” coffin.
When they came to power, all the ‘democracy’ demonstration magically vanished, to be replaced by anti american rallies and riots at labour strikes.
Yes
And Uri just set new record of straight losing, not gaining a single seat, on elections. And the Democratic Labor Party will be busted with recent arrest of a former member violating South Korea’s anti-communist National Security Law.
So Korea will be turning back to old-fashioned of geographical division of political party, not by political ideology.
Furthermore, Active 386 Generation, lost most of its ideological voices in centeral stage again.
Juggertha,
I talked about that in a post a few weeks back. Short version; the GNP had better open its nominating process some or Lee Myung-bak may very well ‘pull a Rhee In-jae.’
The fall of Uri does not mean that there is any kind of consensus for a more conservative government. Most Koreans just know that they don’t want lefty ideologues anymore. Despite Goh Kun’s weakness in the polls (now a constant third after Lee and Park Geun-hye), he positioned perfectly to pick up the pieces of Korea’s fractured left without tying himself too close to Uri.
Andy Jackson, good point. We might see the conservative votes split, which might be enough to give the liberals a victory.
The Uri party, just like the ROK teacher’s union and the DPRK are a bunch of communists. It’s just a matter of time before they break up and beg for welfare.
GNP! GNP! GNP! WOooOoooOooo HooOOooOooooOooo!
–Remort