South Korean Leftists Crush Conservatives in Local Elections Seen as Test of Power of President Lee

The ruling party of South Korea’s left-leaning President Lee Jae Myung roared to a landslide success in local elections Wednesday one year after his inauguration. He had easily defeated a conservative candidate in a “snap election” after the ouster and jailing of his conservative predecessor.The victories of most of the candidates of the Minju or Democratic Party, including the races for mayor of the capital of Seoul and the major port of Busan, solidified Mr. Lee’s grip against conservatives who often fly both American and Korean flags in demonstrations. Mr. Lee‘s ambivalent outlook, supported by the popularity of his party, raised doubts about the future of the Korean American alliance against Communist China.With Minju candidates ahead in 14 of the 16 races for governor and mayor and leading in elections for provincial and city councils and other positions, the voting was likely to deepen differences between leftists and rightists in a politically fractured society. “President Lee is driving the whole country to socialism, or at least to China,” an office worker, Kim Sung-hee, told The New York Sun, “The relationship between Korea and the U.S. is going bad.”A former senior American diplomat in Seoul, Evans Revere, saw the elections as showing “the left’s political ascendance.” The Minju coalition exists “as a curious mix of bedfellows, including pro-Alliance types, moderates and pragmatists, the usual anti-American and anti-Alliance crowd, and a potent group of nationalists advocating various versions of diplomatic and security-related ‘autonomy,” he said, while “the conservatives “are divided and in disarray.”The Korean American alliance also revolves around the policies of President Trump, who has warmed over relations with China’s President Xi while raising concerns in Seoul that he might pull out some of America’s 28,500 troops and close major bases.“The Lee administration is full of people who wish to increase ROK (Republic of Korea) international autonomy by ‘hedging’ on the US alliance,” a long-time expert on China and Korea at the American Enterprise Institute, Nicholas Eberstadt, told the Sun. “That strategy only works if the alliance is 1) in good shape and 2) the US accedes to being ‘hedged against’ by Seoul.”The elections provided the most decisive test so far of support for Mr. Lee, who easily defeated a candidate of the main opposition People Power Party in a “snap election:” on June 3 of last year to succeed the disgraced conservative ex-president, Yoon Suk-yeol, who had defeated Mr. Lee by a razor-thin margin in the previous presidential election in 2022. Mr. Yoon is now serving a lengthy prison term for his abortive attempt at imposing martial law in December 2024 after the Minju majority in the national assembly rejected his legislative program and blocked his appointments to key positions. The Minju, led by Mr. Lee, forced Mr. Yoon to retract his martial law decree within six hours and then had him, his prime minister, his defense minister and police chief, et. al., arrested.The elections were sure to spark claims of vote-rigging after polling places at Seoul ran out of ballots. Downtown, a diehard group of about 500 demonstrators, carrying American and Korean flags, shouted that the elections were “rigged” and “invalid,” but the turnout was minor compared to the outpouring of tens of thousands who have protested over the years against both conservative and leftist governments.One of the most outspoken critics was an American lawyer, Morse Tan, who had held the post of “ambassador at large for criminal justice” in the State Department during Mr. Trump’s first term. Mr. Tan was a member of an unofficial American monitoring team that visited Seoul for last year’s presidential election and returned last week to observe polling places.Korean police have asked the justice ministry to block the exit of Mr. Tan, a former dean at Liberty University in Virginia and an outspoken critic of Mr. Lee’s government, while they considered claims that he defamed Mr. Lee by saying he had once been arrested as a juvenile. Mr. Lee, former mayor of a city south of Seoul and then a provincial governor, still faces charges of corruption that he hopes will be dropped before he steps down as president four years from now.Mr. Lee’s future now depends on bringing together factions within his own Minju Party and between right and left. “President Lee has thus far managed these disputatious elements,” said Mr. Revere, while maintaining ties with Japan and avoiding “major blowups with Washington.”Now, he said, “the biggest threat to the U.S.-ROK alliance is not coming from the ROK Left, but rather from the U.S. itself, led by a MAGA-minded cabal that cares little for the alliance’s principles and core beliefs.”

South Korean Leftists Crush Conservatives in Local Elections Seen as Test of Power of President Lee

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