Letter from Seoul: This isn't just another election

AllAfrica

01-06-2025

Sometimes when momentous things happen in a country, most people don't notice.
That's normal.
People focus on their lives – jobs, family, finances, and the like.
I've been in Seoul, South Korea, for about a week, having been asked to come and see what's going on with the upcoming presidential election.
You wouldn't know that an election that might determine South Korea's future is underway.
The election was called three months ago after conservative president Yoon Suk-yeol's impeachment. He'd declared martial law out of frustration over the leftist-dominated National Assembly using its immense power to make governing impossible.
Yoon called it a 'legislative dictatorship.'
So now it's a race between Lee Jae-myung from the leftist Democratic Party of Korea (DP) and Kim Moon-soo – of the generally conservative People Power Party (PPP).
The DPK contains some hard-core radicals who want to align with the People's Republic of China and North Korea and even end the US-ROK alliance. Lee himself has called the US forces 'occupiers' – and is charged with involvement in sending $8 million to North Korea when he was governor of Gyeonggi Province. One of his lieutenants has already been convicted.
Kim – a former labor activist is pro-US alliance. And he has no illusions about or love for South Korean leftists – having once been one of them – or the Chinese communists and North Korea.
But there is another conservative candidate running. Lee Jun-seok of the small New Reform Party will siphon off votes from Kim.
Polls, not always reliable, put the DPK in the lead.
We will know soon enough.
Two days of early voting are finished and election day is June 3d.
A Kim victory would be better for the US-ROK alliance, although the DP-dominated National Assembly would still make life miserable for a conservative president.
If Lee Jae-myung prevails, things could be very different.
The leftists will have nearly every lever of power in South Korea. They just need the presidency.
They already have the National Assembly (189 seats of 300), much of the judiciary and the police, the media, academia, labor unions and the all-powerful National Election Commission (NEC). Big business has been under attack, and even the ROK military has been put on notice.
South Korean leftists have long wanted total and permanent control. But it started in earnest around 2017 when leftist, Moon Jae-in was elected president following the controversial removal of conservative president Park Chung-hee
If Lee wins, he won't sever the US alliance or nestle up to the PRC and North Korea right away.
US officialdom will tell itself the leftists are pragmatists and won't end the good thing they have with the United States.
But bit by bit the US-ROK relationship will grow colder. Seoul's relationships with Beijing and Pyongyang will warm up. Ties with Japan – improved under President Yoon – will enter the walk-in freezer.
The National Assembly and the leftist president will do whatever they want – and nobody can stop them.
South Korea will effectively be a one-party state.
Future elections won't matter. The National Election Commission will see to that.
It has been stonewalling widespread and detailed citizen-produced evidence of electoral irregularities starting with the 2020 National Assembly election – which gave the DP a solid majority for the first time.
Similar evidence was produced after the 2022 presidential election and the 2024 National Assembly election.
Mention election integrit, however, and South Koreans can find the police at their doorstep and charges leveled.
Being ridiculed as a conspiracy theorist is a given.
But consider the fact that the NEC declared its system was unhackable – when citizens demanded transparency. Yet in 2023 the North Korean Lazarus Group repeatedly hacked the NEC network. Public outcry allowed the National Intelligence Service (not yet entirely under leftist domination) to run penetration tests.
NIS ran wild and reported how the electoral system can be electronically manipulated.
I came to Korea in 2020 to investigate allegations of rigging at the request of concerned citizens.
I expected to find nothing much.
In short order, it was obvious there were problems.
Nothing has changed.
It's still a system ripe for and apparently rife with manipulation. And authorities will not examine the evidence.
Some South Koreans are trying to ensure honest elections. But they are beleaguered.
They would sorely appreciate a kind word from President Trump.
But the Trump administration stands by mute, with eyes primly averted. It declares the relationship 'rock solid' and 'forged in blood? And 'who are we to meddle in another country's politics?'
But rather than electoral interference it would be providing oxygen to people who want to be free and are under pressure. There's nothing wrong with speaking up for consensual government, and civil liberties – and for your friends.
And it puts the bad guys on notice.
If they think America doesn't care or won't do anything at all they'll smother the opposition.
Recall support for dissidents in Russia and Poland and elsewhere in the Cold War?
It mattered.
The US stayed quiet when Hugo Chavez came along in Venezuela in the early 1990's. The honest people just wanted something suggesting USA gave two hoots. They got nothing. And Venezuela is now in the China / Cuba camp.
At least one big problem still remains for the leftists who see their goal in sight. That is the fact that most South Koreans don't want to be like China or North Korea – and support for the US alliance is strong, even among more than a few Democratic Party voters.
And Koreans can be mercurial. They may not quietly go along with what South Korea's hard-core radicals have in mind.
So this isn't just another election. If Washington hasn't paid proper attention to South Korea yet, it will have no choice but to do so before long.