After losing four national elections in a row since 2016, South Korea’s conservatives finally scored a major victory earlier this month: sweeping the by-elections for mayoral seats in South Korea’s two largest cities, Seoul and Busan, which together are home to a quarter of South Korea’s population. While the People Power Party, the main conservative opposition, was expected to win in Busan, the its Seoul mayor candidate Oh Se-hoon came from behind to defeat the ruling Democratic Party’s Park Young-sun in a staggering landslide, 57.5 percent to 39.2 percent. Oh carried all 25 districts of Seoul, including Park’s own Guro-gu.
The Seoul by-election has been widely seen as a referendum on the liberal Moon Jae-in administration, with potential implications for South Korea’s presidential election in 2022. While that analysis is true to a degree, it’s too narrow a focus. The Seoul mayoral by-election is an expression of a political trend that has been developing since the impeachment of conservative President Park Geun-hye in 2016-2017, in which conservatives have gradually regained their footing while liberals slowly leaked support. While South Korea’s liberals still maintain the upper hand, they now face a considerably smaller margin of error.
