South Korean leader wins big in election during pandemic

Bloomberg

South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s ruling coalition scored the largest parliamentary election victory since the end of military-backed rule more than three decades ago, signalling to global leaders that a strong pandemic response can win votes.
The ruling Democratic Party of Korea and its satellite group won 180 places in the 300-seat National Assembly, according to data from South Korea’s election commission. Voter turnout was at about 66%, the highest in 28 years, and the results were seen as a show of support for Moon’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak.
“This is a reminder that people respond to steady, trustworthy leadership in times of crisis,” said Mintaro Oba, a former American diplomat who worked on Korean Peninsula issues. “Moon Jae-in showed you can win elections on a cult of competence instead of a cult of personality.”
The result gives Moon’s progressive camp a three-fifths supermajority, allowing it to push through legislation without opposition votes, including a supplemental stimulus budget announced on Thursday.
The victory adds momentum to the bloc’s key goals to reduce income inequality by prioritising wages, reforming chaebol conglomerates and tightening rules on expensive housing development.
Shares of companies in South Korea’s nuclear power industry fell in early trade on Thursday on worries that Moon victory’s would add to his push to cut back on nuclear power.
“Policies that have met with opposition will now be passed more swiftly, and that’s going to reduce policy uncertainties,” said Nam Chang-woo, an economist at the Korea Development Institute.
“Given the economy is falling into doldrums, it won’t be easy to implement chaebol reforms right away, but they could come when the economy starts to recover.”
Still, Moon fell short of the necessary two-thirds majority needed to enact more significant changes requiring constitutional amendments, such as allowing future presidents to serve more than one term. That term limit will increase attention on potential successors led by former Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon, who defeated opposition leader Hwang Kyo-ahn, in one of the election’s most closely watched races.
Hwang said he would step down from his post in the United Future Party. The conservative group picked up seats to reach a total of 103, but mostly at the expense of smaller groups in parliament and not the ruling party.
“What the people showed through the election was their earnest desire, a desire that supports the government’s efforts to overcome the nationwide crisis,” Moon said in a statement.
“The government will consider this a heavy responsibility, not be arrogant, and listen to the voices of the people in a modest manner.”

Early Stumbles
Like other world leaders, Moon stumbled in his early response to the pandemic, having predicted that the virus would be terminated “before long” only to see cases spike days later. But the government’s focus on mass testing and isolation of the sick to corral coronavirus clusters has been credited with a sharp slowdown in the spread, with new cases now at their lowest levels since February.
His approval rating shot up to 57% from 42% during the crisis as South Korea won global praise for its response to the outbreak.
South Korea’s decision to hold the election contrasts with some US states that have delayed presidential primaries and France, which suspended some local elections after cases began to multiply. Poland plans to conduct its May 10 presidential election by mail-in ballot.