Voters reward Moon Jae-in for response to pandemic with biggest majority since transition to democracy in 1987

This article is more than 5 months old

This article is more than 5 months old

South Korea’s ruling party has won a landslide victory in national assembly elections, in what is being seen as an endorsement of President Moon Jae-in’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Moon’s left-leaning Democratic party and its smaller affiliate won 180 seats in the 300-seat assembly – the biggest majority in the national assembly by any party since South Korea’s transition to democracy in 1987 – according to the Yonhap news agency. The conservative opposition United Future party and its smaller sister party won 103 seats.

Turnout was 66.2%, higher than any parliamentary elections held in South Korea since 1992.

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On Wednesday millions of people, wearing masks and standing at least one metre apart, moved slowly between lines of duct tape at polling stations in one of the first national elections to be held since the global outbreak began.

Before casting their vote they underwent a temperature check, sanitised their hands and put on disposable plastic gloves. Election officials in masks escorted those who failed the temperature check or who were not wearing a mask to separate polling booths, sanitising the facilities after they had voted.

About 13,000 people under self-quarantine due to the virus were allowed to cast ballots immediately after the polls closed, provided they had no symptoms.

South Korea once had the world’s second-largest number of infections after China but brought the outbreak under control through aggressive testing, tracking infected people and widely observed social distancing.

The country continued to record a low number of new infections on Thursday, reporting 22 new cases – the fourth day in a row they have stayed below 30. The country has a total of 10,613 cases and 229 deaths.

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Before the outbreak observers had expected Moon’s party to struggle, with job creation, wages and North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme dominating the political agenda. His approval rating fell to the 30% level in 2019 amid an economic slowdown and a political scandal involving the then justice minister.

But Moon’s response to the coronavirus outbreak has seen his approval rating jump from 41% in late January to 57%, according to Gallup polls.

His “coronavirus diplomacy”, including phone calls with other world leaders eager to learn from South Korea’s response, boosted public support for his administration, said Minseon Ku, a politics scholar at Ohio State University.

Moon had successfully portrayed the outbreak as an “opportunity for South Korea to restructure its economy – capitalising on industries like AI and biopharma”, she said, adding that voters had been impressed by international recognition of the administration’s coronavirus response.

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Chung Eun-young, a Seoul resident, said she had arrived at the polling station just after it opened at 6am to avoid crowds. “I was worried about the coronavirus,” Chung said. “They checked my temperature and handed me gloves but it wasn’t as troublesome as I had expected. I don’t like what we are going through but I cast my ballot to prevent the wrong candidates from getting elected.”

The successful opposition conservative party candidates included Thae Yong-ho, the most senior diplomat to have defected from North Korea.

Thae was deputy ambassador at the North Korean embassy in London when he defected with his wife and two sons in August 2016. He has since become one of the regime’s most vocal critics. Campaigning under his new South Korean name, Thae Gu-min, he is the first North Korean defector to be elected to the national assembly via a constituency vote. Local media reported he was on course for a comfortable victory in the affluent Gangnam district of Seoul.