foreign-policy-diplomacy
The Seoul election that South Korea won and lost at the same time
2026-06-09 · TIGAI Research Team
outh Korea’s June 3 local elections were supposed to be simple. President Lee Jae-myung, one year into his term, sought a popular mandate. The opposition, still reeling from former President Yoon Suk Yeol‘s botched martial law declaration in late 2024 and his subsequent impeachment, was supposed to crumble. And by one measure, it did. The ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) won 12 of 16 metropolitan mayoral and gubernatorial races — a landslide by any conventional standard. The party captured Busan, a conservative stronghold, for the first time in eight years. It swept 17 of Seoul’s 25 district chief posts. On paper, President Lee returned to Tokyo’s Nerima district — where I grew up in the shadow of a modest Shinto shrine — with the kind of consolidated power that would make any Japanese prime minister envious.
Read More →