Members of South Korea’s ruling, conservative People Power Party (PPP) were projected to win at least 12 of 17 governmental posts in local elections nationwide on Thursday, Yonhap News Agency reported, noting that the PPP’s “landslide” victory would provide South Korea’s newly elected President Yoon Suk-yeol with “an added mandate” to push forward with his conservative agenda.
“The PPP won 12 out of 17 key races for big city mayors and provincial governors, including Seoul, while the main opposition Democratic Party (DP) won only five key races, including three in its stronghold of the Jeolla provinces,” the Seoul-based Yonhap reported on June 2.
Yonhap referred to the left-wing Democratic Party (DP), which is also known as the Democratic Party of Korea (DPK).
South Korea’s latest nationwide local elections took place on June 1, though the country’s polling stations continued to tabulate votes as of June 2.
PPP member Oh Se-hoon, Seoul’s current mayor, was successfully re-elected to the role on June 1. Another PPP member named Yoo Jeong-bok won the race for Incheon mayor over the city’s incumbent mayor, Pak Nam-chun, who hails from the DPK.
TOPSHOT – South Korea’s new President Yoon Suk-yeol salutes during his inauguration in front of the National Assembly in Seoul on May 10, 2022. (Photo by JEON HEON-KYUN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
The PPP had hoped to additionally win the Gyeonggi governorship on June 1. Such a victory would have marked the first time in 16 years that the conservative party had swept all three key races in South Korea’s major regions of Seoul, Gyeonggi, and Incheon. The PPP narrowly missed this opportunity, however, ultimately losing to the DPK candidate for Gyeonggi’s governorship.
“The biggest battleground was Gyeonggi Province where the DP candidate, Kim Dong-yeon, came from behind to beat his PPP rival, Kim Eun-hye, by 0.14 percentage point, with 99.67 percent of the vote counted as of 7:20 a.m.,” Yonhap reported on June 2.
“The PPP also took the governorships of both Chungcheong provinces, both Gyeongsang provinces, Gangwon Province, and the mayorships of the central cities of Sejong and Daejeon, as well as the southeastern cities of Daegu, Ulsan and Busan,” according to the news agency.
“I think that we have completed the real change of the government by winning the local elections after the presidential election victory,” PPP floor leader Kweon Seong-dong told reporters on June 2. “We will work harder to realize the will of the people with a humble attitude.”
The PPP’s official candidate for South Korea’s 2022 presidential election, Yoon Suk-yeol, led a successful campaign for the top political office. Yoon defeated the DPK’s nominee for the position to win the presidential election on March 9. The right-wing politician, who formerly served as South Korea’s prosecutor general from 2019 to 2021, was inaugurated as president of South Korea on May 10.
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