Left-leaning South Korea poses new impeachment risks for Yun Seo-yeol government with low approval ratings
Lee Jae-myung, who was elected as the representative of the opposition party “Together Democratic Party” (Photo: YONHAP NEWS/Aflo)
(Mayo Haneda: Business Writer in Korea)
On August 28, Lee Jae-myung, who belongs to the Democratic Party of Korea, was elected as the new leader of the largest opposition party. He won 77.77% of the total votes and defeated candidate Park Yong-jin (22.23%).
This surpassed the 73.5% of votes recorded by former president Kim Dae-jung in the presidential election and 77.5% of the presidential candidate’s internal election, which were recorded at the May 1997 New Politics National Congress all-party convention. It is the highest value of the all-party convention.
Lee’s appointment as party leader makes him the closest person to the next president.
However, the voter turnout this time was 37.09%, lower than the all-party conventions of the past two years (August 2020: 41.03%, May 2021: 42.74%). It seems that the voter’s idea that “Lee Jae-myung should be the president anyway” led to the drop in voter turnout.
Regarding this low voter turnout, he countered, saying, “In the previous all-party convention, regarding 260,000 people voted, but this time it’s close to 400,000.” Said no problem.
In South Korea, half of the population is now left-wing.
At the time of the presidential election held in March 2022, the conservative “power of the people” Yun Sung-yeol, the current president, was 48.56%, and Lee Jae-myung of the leftist “Democratic Party” was a narrow margin with 47.83%.
It is also a fresh memory that the approval rating of the predecessor Moon Jae-in when he retired was 45%, the highest in history. From these facts, it is clear that South Korea is becoming more and more left-wing.
President Yoon’s latest approval rating is 33.6% (announced on August 29, 2022 / real meter survey), which remains low as ever. If he makes a mistake, he might be the same as Park Geun-hye (the first president in the history of Korean constitutional history) who was ousted following holding a candlelight rally by the leftists. The left is aiming for that timing.
The most likely is the issue of recruited workers. In fact, leftists have declared that they will hold a candlelight rally if President Yoon blocks the cashing out of Japanese corporate assets and the South Korean government pays for it. What kind of country will South Korea become in the future?