2020 South Korean legislative election

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2020 South Korean legislative election
South Korea
← 2016 15 April 2020 2024 →
All 300 seats in the National Assembly
151 seats needed for a majority
Turnout66.21% (Increase 8.06pp)
Party Leader Seats +/–
Democratic—Platform (180 seats)
Democratic Lee Hae-chan 163 +40
Platform Woo Hee-jong & Choi Bae-geun 17 New
United Future—Future Korea
(103 seats)
United Future
 Hwang Kyo-ahn 84 −38
Future Korea Han Sun-kyo 19 New
Other parties (17 seats)
Justice Sim Sang-jung 6 0
People Ahn Cheol-soo 3 New
Open Democratic Lee Keun-shik 3 New
Independents — 5 −6
This lists parties that won seats. See the complete results below.
Results by constituency
Speaker before Speaker after
Moon Hee-sang
Democratic		 Park Byeong-seug
Democratic
Politics of South Korea
Government
Legislature
Executive
  • Yoon Suk-yeol (P
    )


Prime Minister of South Korea
Han Duck-soo (I)

Judiciary
  • Jo Hee-de

Constitutional Court of Korea
President Lee Jong-seok
Elections
Political parties
Korean conflict
flag South Korea portal

Legislative elections were held in

satellite parties (also known as bloc parties) to take advantage of the revised electoral system. The reforms also lowered the voting age
from 19 to 18.

The Democratic Party and its satellite, the

1960
.

Electoral system

See also: Elections in South Korea

Previous system

300 members of the National Assembly were elected in the 2016 elections, of whom 253 (84%) were elected from

election threshold of either 5 single-member districts or 3% of the total list vote.[4]

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.[5]

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 and Bareunmirae Party member Yoo Seong-min.[6] 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.[7][8] The Prosecution Service declared that Sohn's actions did not merit criminal charges.[9]

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.

indicted, including leader Hwang Kyo-ahn and then-floor leader Na Kyung-won. The criminal charges included violence and violation of order.[9] Several Democratic Party members were also charged.[14] [needs update
]

The bill was passed on 27 December 2019 despite physical obstruction in the Assembly voting area by the Liberty Korea Party.[5]

New system

Allocation of seats in the new electoral system. Red and green: parallel voting; 253 FPTP seats and 17 PR seats. Blue: additional member system for 30 seats

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, while 17 PR seats continue to use the old parallel voting method.[5][15] The voting age was also lowered from 19 to 18 years old, expanding the electorate by over half a million voters.[16][17]

In response to the new system, the main opposition

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".

Korea Standard Time.[21]

Since 2009 voters have been entitled to vote from overseas.[20] However, due to COVID-19 quarantine measures, voting from over 50 foreign countries was restricted or cancelled.[22] Voters could also cast early votes at any polling stations in Korea without prior notice.[23]

Political parties

See also: List of political parties in South Korea

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.[24] 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

United Future Party.[25]

Parties Leader Ideology Seats Status
Last election Before election
Democratic Party of Korea Lee Hae-chan Liberalism
123 / 300
128 / 300
[a] 		Government
United Future Party[b]
 Hwang Kyo-ahn Conservatism
122 / 300
112 / 300
[c] 		Opposition
Minsaeng Party
 Kim Jung-hwa
Yu Sung-yup 		Conservative liberalism
38 / 300
[d]
20 / 300
 Opposition
Justice Party Sim Sang-jung Progressivism
6 / 300
6 / 300
 Opposition
Our Republican Party Cho Won-jin Right-wing populism Did not exist
2 / 300
 Opposition
Minjung Party
 Lee Sang-kyu Progressivism Did not exist
1 / 300
 Opposition
Korea Economic Party
 Choi Jong-ho
Lee Eun-jae 		Conservatism 0
1 / 300
 Opposition
People Party Ahn Cheol-soo Reformism Did not exist
1 / 300
 Opposition
Pro-Park New Party Hong Moon-jong National conservatism Did not exist
1 / 300
 Opposition
Open Democratic Party Lee Keun-shik Liberalism Did not exist
1 / 300
 Opposition

Parties not represented in the 2016 National Assembly but that planned[needs update] to run candidates include:

Opinion polls

Main article: Opinion polling for the 2020 South Korean legislative election

Impact of COVID-19 pandemic

The election was held during the COVID-19 pandemic, which had both practical impacts on the conduct of the poll, and political impacts on voters' choice of parties to support.[26] 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.[27] The country had introduced one of the world's most comprehensive programmes of COVID-19 testing, contact tracing and quarantine of suspected cases.[28] As a result, the case fatality rate in South Korea was 1.95%, lower than the global average of 4.34%,[29] and the country avoided widespread lockdowns 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.[17]

Special arrangements were required to ensure

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.[27][26] About 26% of votes were cast in advance, either by post or in special quarantine polling stations which operated on 10 & 11 April.[17]

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 and received widespread support in South Korea. The President of South Korea, Moon Jae-in 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.[26]

After the election, people were concerned over new normal of COVID restrictions that government called "everyday quarantine".[30]

Results

Main article: List of members of the National Assembly (South Korea), 2020–2024

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

realigning election for South Korea.[32][33]

A constituency of

Lee Nak-yeon, who served as prime minister from 2017 to 2020.[2]

Voter turnout was 66.2%, the highest level since 1992, despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.[26] In addition to the voter turnout, the number of women elected also reached its highest number, 59 composing 19% of the whole assembly.[37] 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.[38] Also, there is no seven-term parliamentarian and only one six-term parliamentarian who assumed the Speaker of the National Assembly.[39] Number of parliamentarians elected who served more than 3 terms also significantly reduced from 51 in the previous election to 33.[38]

Following the elections, the newly formed proportional parties Platform Party and Future Korea Party started the process of being absorbed into The Democratic Party of Korea 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.[40]

6
180
3
3
103
5
PartyProportionalConstituencyTotal
seats		+/–
Votes%SeatsVotes%Seats
People's Democratic Party
630.0000New
Republican Party570.00000
Independents1,124,1673.9155–6
Total27,899,864100.004728,741,408100.002533000
Valid votes27,899,86495.7928,741,40898.69
Invalid/blank votes1,226,5324.21380,0591.31
Total votes29,126,396100.0029,121,467100.00
Registered voters/turnout43,994,24766.2143,994,24766.19
Source: NEC

By city/province

Constituency and party list results by city/provinces[41]
Region
UFP
 DPK JP PP ODP Other
Ind.
 Total seats
Seats % Seats % Seats % Seats % Seats % Seats % Seats
Seoul 8 33.1 41 33.2 0 9.7 0 8.3 0 5.9 0 9.8 0 49
Busan 15 43.8 3 28.4 0 7.4 0 6.2 0 4.6 0 9.6 0 18
Daegu 11 54.8 0 16.2 0 6.4 0 8.7 0 3.0 0 10.9 1 12
Incheon 1 31.3 11 34.6 0 11.8 0 6.7 0 5.2 0 8.1 1 13
Gwangju 0 3.2 8 61.0 0 9.8 0 4.9 0 8.2 0 12.9 0 8
Daejeon 0 32.3 7 33.7 0 9.8 0 7.9 0 5.5 0 10.8 0 7
Ulsan 5 39.6 1 26.8 0 10.3 0 6.2 0 4.4 0 12.7 0 6
Sejong 0 25.6 2 36.5 0 12.3 0 9.2 0 7.3 0 9.1 0 2
Gyeonggi
 7 31.4 51 34.7 1 10.4 0 7.3 0 5.9 0 7.0 0 59
Gangwon
 4 39.1 3 28.9 0 9.7 0 5.8 0 4.6 0 11.9 1 8
North Chungcheong
 3 36.3 5 30.9 0 10.4 0 6.2 0 4.6 0 11.7 0 8
South Chungcheong
 5 35.4 6 31.2 0 9.7 0 6.4 0 4.6 0 11.6 0 11
North Jeolla
 0 5.7 9 56.0 0 12.0 0 4.1 0 9.0 0 12.6 1 10
South Jeolla
 0 4.2 10 60.3 0 9.6 0 3.9 0 7.0 0 11.8 0 10
North Gyeongsang
 13 56.8 0 16.1 0 6.5 0 5.6 0 2.9 0 12.1 0 13
South Gyeongsang
 12 44.6 3 25.6 0 9.4 0 5.4 0 4.1 0 10.9 1 16
Jeju 0 28.2 3 35.6 0 12.9 0 5.9 0 6.3 0 11.1 0 3
Constituency
total 		84 163 1 0 0 0 5 253
PR list 19 33.8 17 33.4 5 9.7 3 6.8 3 5.4 0 10.9 — 47
Overall total 103 180 6 3 3 0 5 300

By constituency

Main article: Results of the 2020 South Korean legislative election

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.

Christian Liberty Unification Party, who had been its organizer.[51] He was arrested without bail on 7 September and charged with violating the ban on protesting.[52] There were also 120 election lawsuits filed at the South Korean Supreme Court, some of which are ongoing as of 2021.[needs update][53][54]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ 120 - Democratic Party; 8 - Platform Party
  2. Saenuri Party
  3. United Future Party; 20 - Future Korea Party
  4. ^ as People Party

References

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External links

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