No. 1 enemy of ruling elite

The Moon Jae-in administration and the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) are still reeling from the crushing defeat in the April 7 mayoral by-elections in Seoul and Busan. Now the question is whether they can regain public trust and escape the political deadlock.

From the start, the DPK stood little chance of winning the elections. It should not have fielded candidates in the country’s two largest cities as it had promised earlier in accordance with the then party rules.

But the DPK changed the regulations designed to withhold it from fielding candidates in any by-elections if its elected members lost their posts due to corruption or other serious criminal acts. The change ran counter to President Moon’s much-touted pledge to create a fair and just society.

The by-elections were indeed held because the mayoral posts — both occupied with DPK members — were vacated because of sexual harassment scandals. Then Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon committed suicide in July 2020 over allegations that he had sexually harassed his secretary. Former Busan Mayor Oh Keodon resigned over similar allegations in April 2020, and was later indicted.

The DPK cannot deflect criticism for going too far in its bid to recapture the vacant mayoral posts. Revising the party regulations and fielding the candidates was a clear indication that the governing bloc had become too arrogant and self-righteous.

The big mistake was the party’s total disregard for the values of fairness and justice. This led the people to believe that the progressive ruling party and the government were applying double standards for their own benefit.

The ruling elite must have forgotten that Moon took power by taking advantage of massive candlelit rallies that led to the impeachment and ouster of then President Park Geunhye over a large-scale corruption and power abuse scandal in 2017.

President Moon has frequently said he has concentrated on eliminating the “old evils” of the previous conservative administration and restoring the constitutional order and democracy which were undermined by Park’s rule.

His government made considerable progress in this regard, enabling the DPK to win a landslide in the April 2020 general election by securing 180 seats in the 300-member National Assembly. Earlier in 2018, the party also had a sweeping victory in local elections.

In Korea, politicians used to say that if a party wins a presidential election, it may lose a parliamentary poll. But, the DPK won all three elections — presidential in 2017, local in 2018 and parliamentary in 2020. This winning streak, however, has made the DPK and the Moon administration too overconfident about their rule.

But voters put the brakes on the march, shifting their support to the conservative main opposition People Power Party (PPP) in the mayoral by-elections. Centrist voters in particular have been increasingly disgruntled with the left-of-center DPK for its failure to stabilize runaway housing prices, narrow the widening income gap between the rich and the poor, and improve the people’s livelihood amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Government officials and DPK lawmakers already came under criticism for their hypocrisy in 2019 when they went all-out to stop then Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-youl from investigating then Justice Minister Cho Kuk, a close aide to President Moon, over corruption and admissions fraud allegations.

Yoon, widely regarded as an anti-corruption crusader, once said that he would not pledge loyalty to anyone, implying that he would continue to dig up the dirt on corrupt people whoever they were. And when appointing Yoon as the top prosecutor in July 2019, Moon told him that the prosecution should investigate the incumbent political power if allegations of corruption arose.

However, the government and the DPK launched an attack on Yoon specifically because he began to investigate Cho. Former Justice Minister Choo Mi-ae went so far as to try and suspend Yoon from duty and take disciplinary action to dismiss him. The fight against Yoon continued until he resigned in March this year to protest the government’s apparent bid to take direct control of the law enforcement agency in the name of prosecutorial reform.

Another case in point is the land speculation scandal surrounding employees of the state-run Korea Land and Housing Corp. (LH). About 30 former and incumbent LH workers were found to have bought farmland in two satellite cities, south of Seoul, for speculative purposes by illegally using inside information about urban development projects. The scandal has deepened the people’s anger at these civil servants’ hypocritical and deceptive behavior.

The government and the DPK will be unable to regain the people’s trust without drastically changing their governance style. They should lower themselves and become humble to listen carefully to different voices from all walks of life. They should no longer go it alone.

They should also abandon their “I am right, you are wrong” mentality. Scrap the unilateral way of governing and dog-eat-dog partisan struggles. They must work together with the opposition parties to make bipartisan efforts to fight real estate speculation, overcome the pandemic, and speed up economic recovery.

It is also urgent to end divisive politics and promote national unity and social cohesion. Without doing all of these, the ruling party will have little chance of winning the next presidential election set for March 2022. Keep in mind that its No. 1 enemy is its arrogance and self-righteousness.