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ABSTRACT
The 2018 regional election in South Korea brought a tremendous political victory for the liberal Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) and a dramatic loss for the conservative Liberty Party Korea (LPK). The DPK won 14 out of 17 gubernatorial and metropolitan races, 151 out of 226 (69%) elections for executive office at the municipal level, 652 out of 824 (79%) provincial council seats, and 1,638 out of 2,926 (56%) municipal council seats. DPK’s triumph can be ascribed to the aftermath of the impeachment of the last president Park Geun-Hye and high approval rates for the current DPK president Moon Jae-In. Despite DPK’s extraordinary victory, LPK managed to keep some of its electoral strongholds. In addition, the proportion of elected female and young candidates remained very low even though the number of female and young candidates has risen over the past two decades.
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Notes
1 A total of 9,363 candidates was registered, with an average competition rate of 2.3 candidates to 1 post. About eighty-five thousand election posters were established across the country, with about 640 million election announcements. There were about 300 million ballots and about 44,500 ballot boxes. There were 3,512 pre-voting stations and 14,134 general polling stations nationwide. Source: National Election Commission (Citation2018).
2 The total number of eligible voters was 42,907,715 among a total population of 51,900,975 inhabitants. The voter group includes 42,743,386 Korean voters, 58,124 Korean voters residing abroad, and 106,205 foreign voters.
3 Candidates for regional elections cannot be (1) a person who is declared incompetent and committed an election crime, (2) a person who is sentenced to imprisonment, and (3) a person whose eligibility for election is suspended or forfeited by a court judgment or by any other act. Public officials and any other person who are restricted from becoming a candidate due to their posts should resign from their position 90 days before the regional election day.
4 Non-Korean citizens for whom three years have passed after the acquisition date of qualification for permanent residence (Article 10 and Article 34 of the Immigration Control Act) can vote regional elections (Public Official Election Act, Article 15(2) no.3). Foreign residents are not allowed to vote in presidential or parliamentary elections.
5 Official data from the Ministry of Justice shows that 2,367,607 foreigners were residing in South Korea by the end of 2018 (Yonhap News Agency Citation2018a). In the 2010 regional election, a total of 12,787 votes was casted by eligible foreign voters (35.2 per cent turnout) and in the 2014 regional election this number increased to 48,428 cast votes (17.6 percent) (Yonhap News Agency Citation2018b).
6 Ministries of the central government can request regional governments to follow guidelines issued by a ministry and ministries can order the head of a regional government to implement policies delegated by the central government when the head of the regional government negligently performs his or her duties (Local Autonomy Act, Article 166 and Article 170). The central government also appoints the vice governors, vice metropolitan mayors, and deputy municipal heads (Local Autonomy Act, Article 110).
7 The upper-tier governments are responsible for district-wide administration involving two or more municipalities and they act as mediators between central and municipal governments. Also, provincial governments carry out large-scale regional projects that include multiple municipal governments.
8 Sejong City is the least-populous and smallest first-tier autonomous entity. This city was established to reduce side effects due to excessive concentration of the Seoul Capital Area on 1 July 2012. South Korea has relocated numerous ministries and agencies to Sejong city. As of 2019, twelve cabinet member ministries, four non-cabinet member ministries, three agencies of the central government, and fifteen government-funded research institutes moved to the Sejong City.
9 The six metropolitan cities are Busan, Incheon, Daegu, Gwangju, Daejeon, and Ulsan.
10 Since 1987 the president has been directly elected in a single round plurality vote for a single, non-renewable five-year term. Seven presidents have been elected in elections held in 1987, 1992, 1997, 2002, 2007, 2012, and 2017. The current National Assembly consists of 300, 253 members are directly elected in single constituencies and 47 members are elected on a proportional basis from party lists whereby the whole country as whole serves as a single constituency. Eight elections to the National Assembly have been held since 1987 when South Korea was democratized: in 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, and 2016.
11 Candidates defeated in an intraparty competition for party nomination are prohibited from registering as a candidate for the election in the same constituency. Independent candidates are required to collect a certain number of endorsements from eligible voters in their electoral districts before they can stand in an election.
12 On 9 December 2016, the National Assembly impeached the former President Park Geun-Hye by a vote of 234 for and 56 against. After an impeachment trial, President Park was formally removed from office on 10 March 2017 by a unanimous ruling by the Constitutional Court that supported the impeachment. President Park was the first female and also first impeached president in South Korea (Panda Citation2017).
13 One day after the 19th presidential election with five candidates running, the Korean Gallup conducted a self-reported survey with a 1008-sample size between 10 and 11 May 2017. The younger voters were likely to vote for the liberal DPK candidate, Moon Jae-In, than for the conservative LKP candidate, Hong Joon-Pyo. Approximately 40 percent of the 20s or younger and 50 percent of the 30s voted for Moon. However, only 6 and 12 percent for these groups respectively voted for Hong. On the other hand, 41 percent of the 60s or older voted for Hong but only 20 percent for Moon (Gallup Korea Citation2017).
14 Since 2013, any voter can vote at an advance polling station for two to five days before the election day (Public Official Election Act Article 148 and Article 158).
15 A significant change in the balance of power between the LPK and DPK is also apparent at the sub-municipal level. For example, the conservative Grand National Party, which changed its name into Saenuri Party in 2012 and then into the Liberty Korea Party (LPK) in 2017, won all 25 sub-municipal mayoral elections in Seoul in the 2006 elections. In 2018, the liberal DPK won in all but one (Seocho-Gu) sub-municipal mayoral elections.
16 For instance, Jiye Shin, a Green Party candidate who stood in an election to become the mayor of Seoul, ran her campaign in support of feminism. Despite receiving significant media attention she obtained no more than 1.7 percent of the vote. Another example is Eunyoung Go, also from the Green Party, who was a female candidate in Jeju Island gubernatorial election and who received 3.5 percent of the vote (Yen Citation2018).