On April 10, South Korea's parliamentary elections, which are held every four years, officially kicked off, with political parties vying for 300 seats in the National Assembly.
According to statistics, about 44.28 million South Korean voters voted this time, and the final turnout of 67% hit a new high in the National Assembly election in 32 years.
However, the increase in turnout was mixed, with the "pre-poll" system promoting popular participation, and the worrying that some people voted only to prevent their anti-political teams from coming to power, and hateful politics was strong.
Public opinion generally believes that this election is very important, which is equivalent to the "mid-term test" of South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol in the past two years, and is directly related to whether Yoon Suk-yeol's presidential term is smooth, the status of the ruling party, and the South Korean presidential election in 2027.
South Korea's political scene is facing a situation in which the ruling People's Power Party has fewer seats than the opposition parties, and is subject to various checks and balances, such as the inability to provide legislative support for national political issues.
For Yoon Suk-yeol and the ruling party, this election is a "last battle", and if the ruling party fails to win the election, Yoon Suk-yeol faces the dilemma of "lame duck".
However, opinion polls show that the opposition camp, especially the Democratic Party of Korea, still maintains its lead.
On April 11, South Korea officially announced that the opposition camp in South Korea won more than three-fifths of the seats, and the Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) remained the largest party in the National Assembly.
This is the first time since South Korea implemented the direct presidential election system in 1987 that the president has been in a situation of "small and large" for five years, and it is reasonable to assume that it will be more difficult for Yoon Suk-yeol to implement policies in the next three years.
Frankly, the defeat of Yoon Suk-yeol and the ruling party was not unexpected.
On the one hand, Yoon Suk-yeol's ability to govern is controversial.
In 2022, Yoon Suk-yeol narrowly defeated Lee Jae-myung of the Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) to be elected president with a just slogan, but after he came to power, South Korea's contradictions such as the gap between the rich and the poor, regional imbalances, and the antagonism between men and women are still serious.
In addition, Yoon's approval rating has been affected by his failure to address the realities of declining birth rates, rising housing prices, and a slowing economy, hovering around 30 to 40 percent for a long time.
Not long ago, Yoon Suk-yeol triggered a wave of resignations from doctors because of the introduction of a medical enrollment expansion policy, which once again caused public anger, and his lover Kim Jianxi, the first lady of South Korea, was frequently exposed to scandals such as bribery, stock price manipulation, and resume fraud.
Other political parties, on the other hand, are menacing.
According to South Korean media reports, the candidates for parliament of various parties have worked hard to win over voters and come up with various "strange tricks", such as dancing men's group dances, washing people's feet, canvassing shirtless, shaving their hair and writing bloody letters, etc.
In addition, this election is not serious and rational, and both the ruling People's Power Party and the largest opposition party, the Democratic Party of Korea, use the "trial theory" as a tool to canvass votes.
Western media even pointed out that the election was like a "war of scolding", and there were no substantive policy recommendations.
To a certain extent, this reflects the fact that the struggle between the government and the opposition in South Korea has entered a white-hot stage.
During the election campaign, Yoon Suk-yeol also made a lot of jokes.
On March 18, when Yoon Suk-yeol visited a supermarket in Seoul, he claimed that the green onions, which were priced at 875 won, were "reasonable" and intended to show that they were close to the people.
But in reality, the green onion is only a promotional item, and the price of green onions in the past few weeks has actually been 3,000 to 4,000 won, which is almost the highest level in recent years, and the public is very dissatisfied.
The opposition parties quickly fell into the trap, and online social media was flooded with green onion memes.
Offline, Lee Jae-myung waved green onions during the election campaign, strongly accusing Yoon Suk-yeol of failing to control inflation and failing to understand the people's feelings.
In order to deal with the negative impact caused by this, South Korean authorities can only prohibit voters from bringing green onions into polling stations on the grounds of fear of "election interference". Regarding this funny phenomenon, Lee Jae-myung ridiculed that the Yoon Suk-yeol government's move was like "covering its mouth".
The fiasco of the National Power Party soon had a chain reaction.
On April 11, the Prime Minister, the Secretary of the Presidential Office, the Director of the Policy Office, the Chief Secretary, and the interim leader of the South Korean ruling party resigned.
At the same time, Yoon Suk-yeol also made a speech, saying that he would reform national politics and accept public opinion with an open mind. In the future, it remains to be seen whether Yoon Suk-yeol will seek "co-governance" with the opposition camp and adjust his cabinet, or whether he will stick to his current policy direction and implement various reforms.
All in all, South Korean politics is undergoing great changes, and Yoon Suk-yeol may be greeted with more difficult political challenges and even lawsuits.