The Economist March 12th 2022 Asia 33SouthKorea’spresidentialelectionWishy-washy
victory
O
n southkoreantelevisionscreenson
election night, news channels kept
viewersentertained withzany coverage.
Instead of cleancut talking heads, one
broadcaster’svotecountwasaccompanied
bycomputergeneratedavatarsofthetwo
mainpresidentialcandidatesinstainedT
shirts,dirtsplatteredleatherjacketsand
weatherbeatenmotorcycleboots.Asthe
numbersslowlytickedup,theydancedto
kpop,rode locomotivesandraced cars
andmotorbikesthrougha desolate,post
apocalypticlandscape.Thedystopianset
ting and animated mudslinging summed
up an election that had been defined less
by sober debates about policy than by
namecalling and political stunts.
It was close until the very last moment.
Exit polls on the evening of March 9th
showed the two main candidates—Yoon
Sukyeol of the conservative People Power
Party and Lee Jaemyung of the governing
leftofcentre Minjoo Party—in a dead
heat. Mr Yoon carried the day by the small
est margin in South Korea’s democratic
history, winning 48.56% of the vote to Mr
Lee’s 47.83%, with a turnout of 77.1%. He
will take office in May.
The son of professors, Mr Yoon is a
longstanding member of Seoul’s elite. He
made his name as a harddriving prosecu
tor who played a key role in going after Park
Geunhye, a former president, for corrup
tion. He entered politics less than a year
ago, quitting his job as chief prosecutor
under Moon Jaein, the outgoing presi
dent, after the two fell out over an investi
gation of the justice minister.
Mr Yoon has promised voters a presi
dency defined at home by anticorruption,
meritocracy and the rule of law. On foreign
policy his priorities are closer alignment
with America and a tougher stance against
North Korea and China. In his acceptance
speech, Mr Yoon said that he would work
with his opponents and make national un
ity a priority after a divisive campaign.
That will be essential if Mr Yoon hopes
to achieve anything. The new president
will struggle to pass any legislation with
out the support of his opponents, who re
tain a legislative supermajority in the Na
tional Assembly. Indeed, they could sabo
tage his presidency from the very begin
ning, for instance by rejecting his nominee
for prime minister, or by refusing to lend
support to his proposed package of pan
demic recovery measures, the top item onhisagenda.Giventhewaferthin margin
by which Mr Yoon won the presidency,
there is no guarantee that his pppwill win
the next National Assembly elections in
2024, so he may face an unfriendly legisla
ture for his entire term.
The promise of unity will anyway have
rung hollow to most voters. His campaign
stoked division. He claimed that women in
South Korea, which is routinely rated the
worst place among rich countries to be a
working woman, no longer suffered from
bakedin discrimination. He also blamed
feminism for the country’s low fertility
rate. That endeared him to young men
frustrated by compulsory military service
and a lack of good jobs when they get out,
but lost him the support of women under
60, according to exit polls.
Worse, he played to the electorate’s bas
est instincts, pandering to conspiracy the
ories about potential electionrigging by
his opponent, who has conceded defeat,
and threatening to prosecute opposition
politicians for corruption if elected. Min
joo politicians, many of whom enthusias
tically cheered him on when he prosecuted
conservatives, are unlikely to take well to
similar treatment.
Away from home, Mr Yoon’s job will be
no easier. Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Uk
raine has deepened the political and eco
nomic fissures between Western democra
cies and autocracies such as Russia and
China. That complicates South Korea’s al
ready tricky position as a military ally of
America that trades a lot with China. Mean
while South Korea’s bothersome northern
neighbour has ramped up missile testing
this year. It also appears to be rebuilding a
nuclear test facility which it dismantled
during a period of detente in 2018, raising
the possibility of heightened tensions in
the coming months. When it comes to
growing into his new role as president,the
former prosecutor has little time to lose.nS EOUL
Yoon Suk-yeol wins the closest race in
his country’s democratic historyFrom Moon to YoonStateelectionsinIndiaUttar domination
A
s the countcame in on March 10th
from elections in five Indian states,
there were few big surprises. The Bharatiya
Janata Party (bjp) of Narendra Modi, the
prime minister, held on to the country’s
most populous state, Uttar Pradesh. The
Hindu nationalists also stayed on top in
the small states of Goa, Manipur and Utta
rakhand. And if Mr Modi’s party made a
poor show in mediumsized Punjab, most
of whose 30m people are Sikhs, this came
with a sweet consolation. Punjabis gave a
far crueller thrashing to Congress, the bjp’s
fading national rival, reducing a hefty ma
jority in one of the grand old party’s last re
doubts to less than 15%. Voters elected in
stead the newish Aam Aadmi Party (aap).
With just two years to go before India’s
next general election in 2024, this is good
news for Mr Modi. If there is one force in
Indian politics more reliable than money
or hawa—meaning “wind”, or having the
momentum of success behind you—it is
antiincumbency. This factor is especially
strong in the sprawling and impoverished
state of Uttar Pradesh, whose 240m people
have a hard habit of tossing out govern
ments after a single term.
Its voters did trim the bjp’s majority
from threequarters of seats in the outgo
ing state assembly to a more modest two
thirds. But to stay in power at all, despite
the terrible ravages of covid19 and the ef
fects of an economic slump that predates
the pandemic, is no mean feat. To do so in a
state that accounts for one in seven seats in
the national Parliament makes opposition
hopes of ousting Mr Modi even slimmer.
India’s prime minister is not the only
big winner from this round of state elec
tions. The steepness of Congress’s fall in
Punjab was more than matched by the rise
of the aap. Formed barely a decade ago and
adopting the humble broom as its symbol,
the party rules just one quasistate, India’s
capital, Delhi. Its leader, Arvind Kejriwal, a
former tax inspector, projects an image of
hardworking modesty. The party’s focus
on public service and its reputation for
probity had until now won more praise
than votes. But the capture of Punjab, with
a stunning 77% of seats, has catapulted Mr
Kejriwal to national prominence. Some
now see him as a potential challenger to Mr
Modi, if not in 2024 then in 2029.
That may be premature. aap’s surge in
Punjab at the expense of Congress reprises
a decadesold phenomenon. Across IndiaD ELHI
Narendra Modi’s party holds on to a
bellwether state