2020 South Korean Legislative Election
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Legislative elections were held in
South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...
on 15 April 2020. All 300 members of the
National Assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the repr ...
were elected, 253 from
first-past-the-post First-past-the-post (FPTP)—also called choose-one, first-preference plurality (FPP), or simply plurality—is a single-winner voting rule. Voters mark one candidate as their favorite, or First-preference votes, first-preference, and the cand ...
constituencies An electoral (congressional, legislative, etc.) district, sometimes called a constituency, riding, or ward, is a geographical portion of a political unit, such as a country, state or province, city, or administrative region, created to provi ...
and 47 from proportional party lists. They were the first elections held under a new electoral system. The two largest parties, the liberal Democratic Party and the conservative United Future Party, set up new satellite parties (also known as bloc parties) to take advantage of the revised electoral system. The reforms also lowered the
voting age A legal voting age is the minimum age that a person is allowed to Voting, vote in a democracy, democratic process. For General election, general elections around the world, the right to vote is restricted to adults, and most nations use 18 year ...
from 19 to 18. The Democratic Party and its satellite, the Platform Party, won a
landslide victory A landslide victory is an election result in which the winning Candidate#Candidates in elections, candidate or political party, party achieves a decisive victory by an overwhelming margin, securing a very large majority of votes or seats far beyo ...
, taking 180 of the 300 seats (60%) between them. The Democratic Party alone won 163 seats — the highest number by any party since 1960. This guaranteed the ruling liberal alliance an
absolute majority A majority is more than half of a total; however, the term is commonly used with other meanings, as explained in the " Related terms" section below. It is a subset of a set consisting of more than half of the set's elements. For example, if a gr ...
in the legislative chamber, and the three-fifths super-majority required to fast-track its procedures. The conservative alliance between the United Future Party and its satellite Future Korea Party won 103 seats, the worst conservative result since
1960 It is also known as the "Year of Africa" because of major events—particularly the independence of seventeen African nations—that focused global attention on the continent and intensified feelings of Pan-Africanism. Events January * Janu ...
.


Electoral system


Previous system

300 members of the National Assembly were elected in the 2016 elections, of whom 253 (84%) were elected from
single-member constituencies A single-member district or constituency is an electoral district represented by a single officeholder. It contrasts with a Multiwinner voting, multi-member district, which is represented by multiple officeholders. In some countries, such as ...
on a first-past-the-post basis, and 47 (16%) from closed party lists through
proportional representation Proportional representation (PR) refers to any electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to political divisions (Political party, political parties) amon ...
(PR) by the Hare quota largest remainder method. To win seats through proportional representation, parties needed to pass an
election threshold The electoral threshold, or election threshold, is the minimum share of votes that a candidate or political party requires before they become entitled to representation or additional seats in a legislature. This limit can operate in various w ...
of either 5 single-member districts or 3% of the total list vote.


Electoral reform process

An election reform bill was introduced in February 2019, which would change the allocation of part of PR seats with an
additional member system The additional-member system (AMS) is a two-vote seat-linkage-based mixed electoral system used in the United Kingdom in which most legislator, representatives are elected in single-member districts (SMDs), and a fixed number of other "addition ...
. The legislative process utilised the 85th Article of the National Assembly law, called the 'Fasttrack' system, which does not require agreement between all parties. This was opposed by the main opposition
Liberty Korea Party The Liberty Korea Party () was a conservative political party in South Korea that was described variously as right-wing, right-wing populist, or far-right. Until February 2017, it was known as the Saenuri Party (), and before that as the Hann ...
and
Bareunmirae Party The Bareunmirae Party (), also known as the Bareun Mirae Party and Bareun Future Party, was a South Korean liberal-conservative political party. It was founded in 2018 by merger of the centrist liberal People's Party (South Korea, 2016), People ...
member Yoo Seong-min. The decision by Sohn Hak-kyu, leader of the Bareunmirae, to approve the Fasttrack, and his dismissal of his fellow standing committee member Oh Shin-hwan, stirred legal controversy. The Prosecution Service declared that Sohn's actions did not merit criminal charges. The Liberty Korea Party physically disrupted the National Assembly Secretariat in April 2019, to interrupt the Fastrack legal maneuver. The Prosecution Service then opened an investigation into the violence in the National Assembly, and possible violation of the National Assembly law. Several leading members of the LKP were indicted, including leader Hwang Kyo-ahn and then-floor leader Na Kyung-won. The criminal charges included violence and violation of order. Several Democratic Party members were also charged. The bill was passed on 27 December 2019 despite physical obstruction in the Assembly voting area by the Liberty Korea Party.


New system

The National Assembly continued to have 300 seats, with 253 constituency seats and 47 proportional representation seats, as in previous elections. However, 30 of the PR seats were assigned on
additional member system The additional-member system (AMS) is a two-vote seat-linkage-based mixed electoral system used in the United Kingdom in which most legislator, representatives are elected in single-member districts (SMDs), and a fixed number of other "addition ...
, while 17 PR seats continue to use the old
parallel voting In political science, parallel voting or superposition refers to the use of two or more Electoral system, electoral systems to elect different members of a legislature. More precisely, an electoral system is a superposition if it is a mixture o ...
method. The
voting age A legal voting age is the minimum age that a person is allowed to Voting, vote in a democracy, democratic process. For General election, general elections around the world, the right to vote is restricted to adults, and most nations use 18 year ...
was also lowered from 19 to 18 years old, expanding the electorate by over half a million voters. In response to the new system, the main opposition
Liberty Korea Party The Liberty Korea Party () was a conservative political party in South Korea that was described variously as right-wing, right-wing populist, or far-right. Until February 2017, it was known as the Saenuri Party (), and before that as the Hann ...
set up a
satellite party Satellite Party was an alternative rock band formed by Jane's Addiction vocalist Perry Farrell following the break-up of Jane's Addiction in 2004. Other members included Carl Restivo (bass) and Farrell's wife, Etty Lau Farrell (backing singer a ...
(called the Future Korea Party) to maximise the number of PR seats it would gain. The Democratic Party responded by setting up their own satellite party, the Platform Party. In both cases, the main party stood candidates only in the constituency seats, whilst the satellite party stood only in the PR lists. This meant that the satellite party would receive the maximum number of compensatory seats, regardless of how over-represented the parent parties were in the constituencies. Smaller parties did not set up satellites, because the advantage only appears if the party is over-represented in the constituencies.


Date and electorate

The 2020 election for the National Assembly was held on 15 April, in accordance with Article 34 of the Public Official Election Act, which specifies that Election Day for legislative elections is on "the first Wednesday from the 50th day before the expiration of the National Assembly members term of office". Eligible voters were required to be registered and at least 18 years old on the day of the election, and to show an approved form of identification at the
polling place A polling place is where voters cast their ballots in elections. The phrase polling station is also used in American English, British English and Canadian English although a polling place is the building and polling station is the specific ...
. Polls on Election Day were open from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Korea Standard Time South Korea has one time zone, Korea Standard Time (UTC+09:00, UTC+9), which is abbreviated KST. South Korea currently does not observe daylight saving time. From May 8 to October 9 in 1988, daylight saving time was tested to better accommodat ...
. Since 2009 voters have been entitled to vote from overseas. However, due to
COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. In January 2020, the disease spread worldwide, resulting in the COVID-19 pandemic. The symptoms of COVID‑19 can vary but often include fever ...
quarantine measures, voting from over 50 foreign countries was restricted or cancelled. Voters could also cast early votes at any polling stations in Korea without prior notice.


Political parties

Both major parties split to take advantage of the new electoral system, with the main party only running in the constituencies, and the satellite party only running for the proportional seats. They are listed together in the table below, which is sorted by the number of seats prior to the election. In the run-up to the election the
Liberty Korea Party The Liberty Korea Party () was a conservative political party in South Korea that was described variously as right-wing, right-wing populist, or far-right. Until February 2017, it was known as the Saenuri Party (), and before that as the Hann ...
absorbed the New Conservative Party and several smaller parties, forming the United Future Party. Parties not represented in the 2016 National Assembly but that planned to run candidates include: * The Green Party Korea (), a
green Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by light which has a dominant wavelength of roughly 495570 nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by a com ...
political party. * The Labor Party (), a
democratic socialist Democratic socialism is a left-wing economic and political philosophy that supports political democracy and some form of a socially owned economy, with a particular emphasis on economic democracy, workplace democracy, and workers' self-mana ...
political party. * The Women's Party, a
feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...
political party. * The
Basic Income Party The Basic Income Party (BIP; ) is a Single-issue politics, single-issue list of political parties in South Korea, political party in South Korea advocating for a universal basic income (UBI). For the 2024 South Korean legislative election, 202 ...
, a single-issue party split from the Labor Party () to campaign for
universal basic income Universal basic income (UBI) is a social welfare proposal in which all citizens of a given population regularly receive a minimum income in the form of an unconditional transfer payment, i.e., without a means test or need to perform Work (hu ...
. * Future Party, a youth-led political party founded in 2017, focusing more on youth voting, outreach, and campaigning. * National Revolutionary Dividends Party, a
third position The Third Position is a set of neo-fascist political ideologies that were first described in Western Europe following the Second World War. Developed in the context of the Cold War, it developed its name through the claim that it represented ...
populist and anti-corruption political party.


Opinion polls


Impact of COVID-19 pandemic

The election was held during the
COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...
, which had both practical impacts on the conduct of the poll, and political impacts on voters' choice of parties to support. In February 2020, South Korea had the second-most cases of any country, after China. By election day, South Korea had recorded over 10,000 cases and 200 deaths. The country had introduced one of the world's most comprehensive programmes of
COVID-19 testing COVID-19 testing involves analyzing samples to assess the current or past presence of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that cases COVID-19 and is responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic. The two main types of tests detect either the presence of the viru ...
,
contact tracing In public health, contact tracing is the process of identifying people who may have been exposed to an infected person ("contacts") and subsequent collection of further data to assess transmission. By tracing the contacts of infected individua ...
and
quarantine A quarantine is a restriction on the movement of people, animals, and goods which is intended to prevent the spread of disease or pests. It is often used in connection to disease and illness, preventing the movement of those who may have bee ...
of suspected cases. As a result, the
case fatality rate In epidemiology, case fatality rate (CFR) – or sometimes more accurately case-fatality risk – is the proportion of people who have been diagnosed with a certain disease and end up dying of it. Unlike a disease's mortality rate, the CFR does ...
in South Korea was 1.95%, lower than the global average of 4.34%, and the country avoided widespread
lockdown A lockdown () is a restriction policy for people, community or a country to stay where they are, usually due to specific risks that could possibly harm the people if they move and interact freely. The term is used for a prison protocol that us ...
s that were implemented elsewhere. Electoral officials declined to postpone the election; South Korea has never postponed any election, even the 1952 election which was held during the
Korean War The Korean War (25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953) was an armed conflict on the Korean Peninsula fought between North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea; DPRK) and South Korea (Republic of Korea; ROK) and their allies. North Korea was s ...
. Special arrangements were required to ensure
social distancing In public health, social distancing, also called physical distancing, (NB. Regula Venske is president of the PEN Centre Germany.) is a set of non-pharmaceutical interventions or measures intended to prevent the spread of a contagious dise ...
during the election and prevent further infection. Voters were required to wear face masks and stay at least apart when queueing or casting their votes. Before entering the
polling station A polling place is where voters cast their ballots in elections. The phrase polling station is also used in American English, British English and Canadian English although a polling place is the building and polling station is the specific ...
, each voter was checked for
fever Fever or pyrexia in humans is a symptom of an anti-infection defense mechanism that appears with Human body temperature, body temperature exceeding the normal range caused by an increase in the body's temperature Human body temperature#Fever, s ...
using a
thermometer A thermometer is a device that measures temperature (the hotness or coldness of an object) or temperature gradient (the rates of change of temperature in space). A thermometer has two important elements: (1) a temperature sensor (e.g. the bulb ...
, required to use hand sanitiser, and issued with disposable plastic gloves. Any voter with a
body temperature Thermoregulation is the ability of an organism to keep its body temperature within certain boundaries, even when the surrounding temperature is very different. A thermoconforming organism, by contrast, simply adopts the surrounding temperature ...
greater than was taken to a segregated polling booth, which was disinfected after each use. The thousands of voters who had been placed in self isolation due to potential infections were allowed to vote, but only after the polling stations had been closed to all other voters, and provided they were
asymptomatic Asymptomatic (or clinically silent) is an adjective categorising the medical conditions (i.e., injuries or diseases) that patients carry but without experiencing their symptoms, despite an explicit diagnosis (e.g., a positive medical test). P ...
. About 26% of votes were cast in advance, either by post or in special quarantine polling stations which operated on 10 & 11 April. Before the outbreak of the pandemic, the Democratic Party had been expected to struggle in the election: opinion polls in 2019 had predicted it would win 37–41% of the constituency votes. The government's response to the outbreak was praised by the
World Health Organization The World Health Organization (WHO) is a list of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations which coordinates responses to international public health issues and emergencies. It is headquartered in Gen ...
and received widespread support in South Korea. The
President of South Korea The president of the Republic of Korea (), also known as the president of South Korea (), is the head of state and head of government of South Korea. The president directs the executive branch of the Government of South Korea, government and is ...
,
Moon Jae-in Moon Jae-in (, ; born January 24, 1953) is a South Korean politician and former lawyer who served as the 12th president of South Korea from 2017 to 2022. Before his presidency, he served as the senior secretary for civil affairs and the Chief ...
of the Democratic Party, was not up for re-election, but his response to the pandemic was popular and benefited his party in the legislative election. After the election, people were concerned over new normal of COVID restrictions that government called "everyday quarantine".


Results

The Democratic Party won 163 constituency seats, while their satellite Platform party won 17 proportional representation seats, giving the alliance a total of 180 seats in the 300-seat assembly, enough to reach the three-fifths super-majority required to fast-track assembly procedures and "do everything but revising the Constitution at the parliament." This was the largest majority for any party since democracy was restored in 1987. The United Future Party and their satellite Future Korea Party won 84 constituency and 19 proportional seats respectively; their total of 103 seats (34.3%) was the worst conservative result since the 1960 legislative elections. Commentaries have reported this result as a
realigning election A political realignment is a set of sharp changes in party-related ideology, issues, leaders, regional bases, demographic bases, and/or the structure of powers within a government. In the fields of political science and political history, this is ...
for South Korea. A constituency of Gangnam District in Seoul was won by United Future Party candidate Thae Ku-min, an ex-North Korean diplomat formerly known as Thae Yong-ho. While the seat was considered a safe conservative seat, it nevertheless marks the first time in history a
North Korean defector People defect from North Korea for political, material, and personal reasons. Defectors flee to various countries, mainly South Korea. In South Korea, they are referred to by several terms, including "northern refugees" and "new settlers". To ...
had won a constituency seat in the assembly. United Future Party Hwang Kyo-ahn, who served as
prime minister A prime minister or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. A prime minister is not the head of state, but r ...
from 2015 to 2017 and acting president during
Park Geun-hye Park Geun-hye (; ; born 2 February 1952) is a South Korean politician who served as the 11th president of South Korea from 2013 until Impeachment of Park Geun-hye, she was removed from office in 2017. Park was the first and to date only woman ...
's suspension from 2016 to 2017, was defeated by the Democratic Party candidate Lee Nak-yeon, who served as prime minister from 2017 to 2020.
Voter turnout In political science, voter turnout is the participation rate (often defined as those who cast a ballot) of a given election. This is typically either the percentage of Voter registration, registered voters, Suffrage, eligible voters, or all Voti ...
was 66.2%, the highest level since
1992 1992 was designated as International Space Year by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 – Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt replaces Javier Pérez de Cuéllar of Peru as United Nations Secretary-General. * January 6 ** The Republ ...
, despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to the voter turnout, the number of women elected also reached its highest number, 59 composing 19% of the whole assembly. Moreover, the number of people serving as the parliamentarian for the first time composed more than half of the whole assembly – the first to do so in 16 years. Also, there is no seven-term parliamentarian and only one six-term parliamentarian who assumed the Speaker of the National Assembly. Number of parliamentarians elected who served more than 3 terms also significantly reduced from 51 in the previous election to 33. Following the elections, the newly formed proportional parties Platform Party and Future Korea Party started the process of being absorbed into The Democratic Party and the United Future Party respectively. There were calls to revise the new electoral law prior to integration, which the reverse effect from its intent of increasing small party representation as more seats were won by the big parties.


Constituency seats won by city/province


Party-list results by city/province


By constituency


Aftermath

Following the elections, some defeated United Future Party candidates claimed that the election had been fraudulent due to the fact that leads held early in the count were wiped out when the early and postal votes (which favored the Democratic Party) were counted. Some alleged involved by the
Chinese Communist Party The Communist Party of China (CPC), also translated into English as Chinese Communist Party (CCP), is the founding and One-party state, sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Founded in 1921, the CCP emerged victorious in the ...
and equipment from
Huawei Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. ("Huawei" sometimes stylized as "HUAWEI"; ; zh, c=华为, p= ) is a Chinese multinational corporationtechnology company in Longgang, Shenzhen, Longgang, Shenzhen, Guangdong. Its main product lines include teleco ...
. However, other UFP members criticized the accusations, saying that there was no proof of fraud. Although the claims were widely regarded to be conspiracy theories, they led to protests labelled the Black Umbrella Protests, where the protesters used umbrellas to mirror the 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests. A large protest went ahead on 15 August despite a government ban on protests due to COVID-19. The protest organizers claimed there were more than a million participants. The August protest resulted in a sharp rise of COVID-19 infection in South Korea over the August to September period, which caused the Democratic Party to call for the arrest of Jeon Kwang-hoon, a candidate for proportional representation under the Christian Liberty Unification Party, who had been its organizer. He was arrested without bail on 7 September and charged with violating the ban on protesting. There were also 126 election lawsuits filed at the South Korean Supreme Court. but there has not been a single case where the court has acknowledged this.


See also

* 2022 South Korean presidential election *
List of members of the National Assembly (South Korea), 2020–2024 The 21st National Assembly of South Korea was the twenty-first session of the National Assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral ...


Notes


References


External links


National Election Commission
{{South Korean elections Legislative elections in South Korea
South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...
Legislative A legislature (, ) is a deliberative assembly with the legal authority to make laws for a political entity such as a country, nation or city on behalf of the people therein. They are often contrasted with the executive and judicial powers ...
Legislative A legislature (, ) is a deliberative assembly with the legal authority to make laws for a political entity such as a country, nation or city on behalf of the people therein. They are often contrasted with the executive and judicial powers ...