Closet South Korean Election in History: Yoon Suk-Yeol Victorious
Kim Hong-Ji/AFP via Getty Images
On March 9, 2022, in the closest election in South Korean history, Yoon Suk-Yeol, the presidential candidate of the People Power Party, was elected as the President for the next five years.
The People Power Party is the main conservative party in South Korea, with its primary rival being the Democratic Party of Korea.
With the current issues that are present in South Korea, including government corruption, gender inequality, unaffordable housing, and COVID-19, this election was especially important. Yoon Suk-Yeol will certainly have his hands full addressing all of these problems and more when he officially enters office on May 10, 2022.
Yoon Suk-Yeol had been in a neck-to-neck race with Lee Jae-Myung of the Democratic Party. The election turned out to be highly contentious, with Yoon only winning by 247,077 votes, a margin of less than one per cent.
The election had been riddled with scandals and misconduct, as both opponents had desperately tried to gain the upperhand. As a result, Yoon Suk-Yeol and Lee Jae-Myung were both seen as unlikeable throughout the campaign. Even still, 77 per cent of eligible voters cast their ballots.
Their beliefs clashed in several areas, with one example being their opinions on who should be given cash handouts due to the COVID-19 global pandemic. Lee Jae-Myung wanted to offer cash handouts to all citizens of South Korea, while Yoon only wanted to provide them for people who were specifically badly affected due to the pandemic.
However, a few of the candidates’ campaign promises were quite similar, such as their real estate policy plans, and their shared desire to develop a strong relationship between the United States and South Korea.
Yoon Suk-Yeol notably used his anti-feminism opinions to win the votes of young men who support the preservation of a patriarchal society. Currently, a significant portion of men in South Korea are opposed to feminism and believe that women have been given too many rights. According to a 2018 report from the Korean Women’s Development Institute, 55 per cent of young men oppose the #MeToo movement.
To appeal to this voting bloc, Yoon pledged to abolish the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, which he claimed was being unfair to men. He also promised to raise the penalty for falsely reporting sex crimes. Although his opponent, Lee Jae-Myung, had also agreed that discrimination against men was bad, the Democratic Party leader had tried to appeal more to the young feminists of South Korea. Lee did this by promising to close the gender wage gap.
As a part of Yoon Suk Yeol’s campaign, he also claimed that if elected, he would readjust South Korea’s Relations with China and North Korea, and strengthen the country’s ties to the United States.
Yoon Suk-Yeol stated in his victory speech that, “Our competition is over for now...We have to join hands and unite into one for the people and the countr y.”