Legislative elections were held in
South Korea
South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...
on 13 April 2016. 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 repre ...
were elected, 253 from
first-past-the-post
In a first-past-the-post electoral system (FPTP or FPP), formally called single-member plurality voting (SMP) when used in single-member districts or informally choose-one voting in contrast to ranked voting, or score voting, voters cast their ...
constituencies
An electoral district, also known as an election district, legislative district, voting district, constituency, riding, ward, division, or (election) precinct is a subdivision of a larger state (a country, administrative region, or other polity ...
and 47 from
proportional party lists. The election was an upset victory for the liberal
Democratic Party Democratic Party most often refers to:
*Democratic Party (United States)
Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to:
Active parties Africa
*Botswana Democratic Party
*Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea
*Gabonese Democratic Party
*Demo ...
, which defied opinion polling by winning a plurality of seats in the election and defeating the ruling conservative
Saenuri 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 Han ...
by one seat. In votes for party lists, however,
Democratic Party Democratic Party most often refers to:
*Democratic Party (United States)
Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to:
Active parties Africa
*Botswana Democratic Party
*Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea
*Gabonese Democratic Party
*Demo ...
came third, behind the Saenuri Party in first place and the new
People Party in second.
The election marked an upheaval in the South Korean party system, installing a
hung parliament
A hung parliament is a term used in legislatures primarily under the Westminster system to describe a situation in which no single political party or pre-existing coalition (also known as an alliance or bloc) has an absolute majority of legisl ...
for the first time since
2000
File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from ...
and a
three-party system
In political science, a multi-party system is a political system in which multiple political parties across the political spectrum run for national elections, and all have the capacity to gain control of government offices, separately or in c ...
for the first time since
1996
File:1996 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: A Centennial Olympic Park bombing, bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, set off by a radical Anti-abortion violence, anti-abortionist; The center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 8 ...
.
The People Party attained a kingmaker position in the new Assembly, while the leadership of the Saenuri Party including chairman
Kim Moo-sung
Kim Moo-sung (born 20 September 1951) is a South Korean politician as a member of the Liberty Korea Party. He was previously the Saenuri Party leader from 2014 to 2016.
Education
Kim graduated from Joongdong High School in Seoul in 1970. He g ...
resigned en masse following their defeat, relinquishing control of the party to an emergency response commission.
The 2016 legislative election was the first to be held in South Korea following the formation of the People Party and the enforcement of controversial
Constitutional Court
A constitutional court is a high court that deals primarily with constitutional law. Its main authority is to rule on whether laws that are challenged are in fact unconstitutional, i.e. whether they conflict with constitutionally established ...
rulings dissolving the left-wing
Unified Progressive Party
The Unified Progressive Party (UPP; ko, 통합진보당, RR: ''Tonghap Jinbo-dang'', Hanja: 統合進步黨) is a banned political party in South Korea. It was founded on 5 December 2011 as a merger of the Democratic Labor Party, the People ...
and mandating the redistricting of the Assembly's constituencies.
Background
In the
2012 legislative election, the ruling conservative
Saenuri 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 Han ...
won a slim majority of 152 seats out of 300.
The party also retained control of the presidency, as Saenuri candidate
Park Geun-hye
Park Geun-hye (; ; often in English ; born 2 February 1952) is a South Korean politician who served as the 11th president of South Korea from 2013 to 2017, until she was impeached and convicted on related corruption charges.
Park was the fi ...
won the
presidential election that year. By the time of the 2016 legislative election, the Saenuri delegation had fallen to 146 out of 292 filled Assembly seats, exactly 50%. The 2016 election was seen as an important stepping stone to the
2017 presidential election, which was held on 9 May 2017.
Redistricting
In 2014, the
Constitutional Court of Korea
The Constitutional Court of Korea () is highest constitutional court in judicial branch of South Korea, seated in Jongno, Seoul. Established under Chapter 6 of the Constitution of South Korea, the Court has ultimate jurisdiction over judicial ...
mandated that because the population disparities between the Assembly constituencies were resulting in unequal representation, the constituencies must be redistricted for the 2016 elections. The Court held that
the largest and smallest constituencies by population must not differ from each other by more than 2:1, and that the number of constituents in any given constituency must not differ from the average number of constituents by more than one third.
A deadline of 31 December 2015 was set for the redistricting to take place. Nonetheless, by the end of 2015 the National Assembly had not approved a new electoral map. Viewing the situation as an emergency, the National Election Commission was forced to allow registered candidates to campaign without a set map of constituencies. The crisis was ultimately resolved in February 2016 with an agreement between the two major parties that allowed a new electoral map to be passed by the National Assembly. The new set of provisions raised the number of districts from 246 to 253, while decreasing the number of list-selected seats from 54 to 47.
Reordering of the opposition
In the aftermath of the
2013 South Korean sabotage plot
In August 2013, South Korea's spy agency, the National Intelligence Service, accused Lee Seok-ki, a lawmaker from the leftist Unified Progressive Party (UPP), of plotting to overthrow the country's government if war broke out with North Korea. ...
, another controversial Constitutional Court ruling enforced the dissolution of the
Unified Progressive Party
The Unified Progressive Party (UPP; ko, 통합진보당, RR: ''Tonghap Jinbo-dang'', Hanja: 統合進步黨) is a banned political party in South Korea. It was founded on 5 December 2011 as a merger of the Democratic Labor Party, the People ...
due to the party's alleged ideological affinity to
North Korea
North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu River, Y ...
. The dissolution of the UPP left the
Justice Party as the sole left-wing democratic socialist party in the National Assembly. The
Korean Confederation of Trade Unions
The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), literally translated as National Democratic Confederation of Trade Unions, also known as Minju-nochong ( ko, 민주노총; acronym for ''KCTU'' in Korean language) is a national trade union centr ...
, the most influential democratic trade union organisation in Korea that had originally supported the UPP, now endorsed the Justice Party. The Justice Party's candidates and Assembly members were considered to have similar political views as the left-wing members of the main opposition
Democratic Party Democratic Party most often refers to:
*Democratic Party (United States)
Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to:
Active parties Africa
*Botswana Democratic Party
*Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea
*Gabonese Democratic Party
*Demo ...
, and many votes from the Justice Party shifted to the Democratic Party.
The opposition was further fragmented when
Ahn Cheol-soo
Ahn Cheol-soo ( ; born 26 February 1962) is a South Korean politician, medical doctor, businessperson, and software entrepreneur. He currently serves as a member of the National Assembly as part of the conservative People Power Party.
Pri ...
defected from the main opposition Democratic Party and established a new
People Party in early 2016. Due to South Korea's largely
first-past-the-post
In a first-past-the-post electoral system (FPTP or FPP), formally called single-member plurality voting (SMP) when used in single-member districts or informally choose-one voting in contrast to ranked voting, or score voting, voters cast their ...
electoral system, the division between the liberal Democratic and People's parties had led to projections of a sweeping victory for the ruling Saenuri Party in the elections.
The two opposition parties considered an electoral alliance but by 5 April the idea was abandoned, with interim Democratic leader
Kim Chong-in
Kim Chong-in (, born 7 July 1940) is a South Korean economist and politician. He was the interim chairman of the Minjoo Party of Korea from January to August 2016 and a member-elect of the National Assembly on the party's proportional list si ...
stating that his party "will hold the elections whether the People’s Party is there or not".
Legislative gridlock
The outgoing 19th National Assembly was marked by
political gridlock. In February 2016, Democratic lawmakers undertook the world's longest filibuster to stall an anti-terrorism bill, and the Assembly passed less than a third of the bills introduced in its term. The Saenuri Party aimed to win a supermajority of 180 seats in the 2016 election so that it could ease the gridlock by repealing the existing requirement for three-fifths of the Assembly to agree to the introduction of each bill.
Electoral system
300 members of the National Assembly were elected in the 2016 elections, of whom 253 (84%) were elected from single-member constituencies on a first-past-the-post basis, and 47 (16%) from
closed party lists through
proportional representation
Proportional representation (PR) refers to a type of electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to geographical (e.g. states, regions) and political divis ...
by the
Hare quota largest remainder method, in accordance with South Korea's Public Official Election Act.
In order to win seats through proportional representation, parties needed to pass an
election threshold
The electoral threshold, or election threshold, is the minimum share of the primary vote that a candidate or political party requires to achieve before they become entitled to representation or additional seats in a legislature. This limit can ...
of either 5 single-member districts or 3% of the total list vote.
Restrictions on candidates
Candidates for the National Assembly were required to pay a fee of (US$13,000 as of April 2016), and under the
National Security Act the Constitutional Court may block the registration of "left-wing", "pro–North Korean" parties, though this provision had not affected the previous election in 2012.
Date and process
The 2016 election for the National Assembly was held on 13 April, in accordance with Article 34 of the Public Official Election Act, which specifies that Election Day for legislative elections is held on "the first Wednesday from the 50th day before the expiration of the
ational Assembly members'term of office". Eligible voters were required to be registered and at least 19 years old on the day of the election,
and needed 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 and British English, although polling place is the building . 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), which is abbreviated KST. South Korea currently does not observe daylight saving time, but experimented with it during the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul.
History
In 1434, inventor ...
(21:00–09:00 UTC, 12–13 April).
Since 2009, voters have been able to vote overseas,
and the election began with registered overseas voters casting ballots between 30 March and 4 April. For the first time in a national election, the National Election Commission also allowed early votes to be cast at polling stations in Korea without notice. This early voting period lasted from 8 to 9 April, in which time the NEC reported a high turnout of 12.2%.
Political parties
Four major parties contested the 2016 election:
* The
Saenuri 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 Han ...
, led by
Kim Moo-sung
Kim Moo-sung (born 20 September 1951) is a South Korean politician as a member of the Liberty Korea Party. He was previously the Saenuri Party leader from 2014 to 2016.
Education
Kim graduated from Joongdong High School in Seoul in 1970. He g ...
, the
conservative
Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...
ruling party
* The
Democratic Party Democratic Party most often refers to:
*Democratic Party (United States)
Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to:
Active parties Africa
*Botswana Democratic Party
*Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea
*Gabonese Democratic Party
*Demo ...
, led on an interim basis by Kim Chong-in, the main
liberal
Liberal or liberalism may refer to:
Politics
* a supporter of liberalism
** Liberalism by country
* an adherent of a Liberal Party
* Liberalism (international relations)
* Sexually liberal feminism
* Social liberalism
Arts, entertainment and m ...
opposition party
* The
People Party, led jointly by Ahn Cheol-soo and
Chun Jung-bae
Chun Jung-bae (; born 12 December 1954) is a South Korean politician who was the joint chairman of the People's Party, alongside Ahn Cheol-soo. He is a member of the National Assembly for Seo District in Gwangju since 2015, having previously ...
, a centrist party formed in early 2016 from a split from the Democratic Party
* The
Justice Party, led by standing chairwoman
Sim Sang-jung
Sim Sang-jung (born 20 February 1959) is a South Korean politician and labor rights activist. She was one of the five major presidential candidates in the 2017 South Korean presidential election, running as the Justice Party's nominee. She agai ...
, a left-wing progressive party
Two other parties had one member in the outgoing National Assembly: the religious conservative
Christian Liberal Party,
and another center-left party known as the
Minjoo Party.
[Unless otherwise specified, "Minjoo" or "Minjoo Party" refers to the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea, not the minor party.]
Candidate nominations
The Saenuri Party's candidate nomination process proved contentious. Several members of the Saenuri nominations committee accused party chairman
Kim Moo-sung
Kim Moo-sung (born 20 September 1951) is a South Korean politician as a member of the Liberty Korea Party. He was previously the Saenuri Party leader from 2014 to 2016.
Education
Kim graduated from Joongdong High School in Seoul in 1970. He g ...
of becoming unduly involved in the process, and the party
deselected a number of candidates who were seen as being opposed to the party leadership and President Park Geun-hye. Many of the deselected candidates defected from the party and announced that they would run as independents. On 4 April, a spokesman for the party said that "during the candidate selection process, we upset our people and
he number ofour supporters who may not vote is worse
han we expected" The party published a theme song apologizing for the nominations controversy.
It also is thought by many that it was the main reason that caused the Saenuri Party to lose.
Campaign
Campaigning for the election officially began on 30 March, lasting until 12 April. Under South Korean law, candidates were only permitted to campaign in a limited fashion before the beginning of the designated period, including sending a maximum of five text messages publicizing themselves to each voter.
National security issues
National security issues were a topic of contention in the campaign between the Saenuri and Democratic parties, though the People Party focused on other policy areas.
The Saenuri Party argued for a hard-line approach to North Korea, and Saenuri chairman Kim Moo-sung accused the main opposition Democratic Party of pro–North Korean activity due to its support for the reopening of the
Kaesong Industrial Complex
The Kaesŏng Industrial Region (KIR) or Kaesŏng Industrial Zone (KIZ) is a special administrative industrial region of North Korea (DPRK). It was formed in 2002 from part of the Kaesŏng Directly-Governed City. On 10 February 2016, it was temp ...
,
an industrial park operated collaboratively by North and South Korea that had been closed down in February 2016. The Democratic Party sought to portray the reopening of the complex as an economic rather than a political issue.
The South Korean government announced a series of defections from the North in early April, with critics viewing the announcements as an electoral strategy on behalf of the ruling party. A local media report quoted an unnamed government official as saying that the
Blue House
Cheong Wa Dae ( ko, 청와대; Hanja: ; ), also known as the Blue House, is a public park that formerly served as the executive office and official residence of the president of South Korea from 1948 to 2022. It is located in the Jongno distri ...
had overruled the
Ministry of Unification
The Ministry of Unification is an executive department of the South Korean government aimed at promoting Korean reunification. It was first established in 1969 as the ''National Unification Board'', under the rule of Park Chung-hee. It gained its ...
's objections to publicizing the defections. The Ministry of Unification denied any connection between the announcements and the election campaign.
Candidates from both the opposition and the ruling party also pledged to push for the relocation of U.S. military bases from their constituencies.
Economic issues
The Korean economy was a dominant area of debate, as the governing Saenuri Party promoted business-friendly economic reforms while opposition parties attacked the government for presiding over a historically high youth unemployment rate and declining economic growth.
The Saenuri Party sought to gain support for labor reforms initiated by President Park, which aimed to cut unemployment by increasing contract flexibility. Trade unions attacked the plans, arguing that the new laws would strip away necessary protections from workers. The Democratic Party accused the ruling party of economic mismanagement,
and used the campaign to push for "
economic democratization" and a shift from larger conglomerates to small business; the party also promised to raise pensions and the minimum wage, to sponsor public housing development,
and to expand mandatory youth employment quotas.
Critics argued that Democratic plans would have a distortionary effect on the labor market.
Sim Sang-jung, chairwoman of the left-wing Justice Party, argued that the Saenuri, Democratic, and People's parties had all failed to articulate distinctive economic policies.
Social issues
Speaking in Seoul during the campaign, Saenuri chairman Kim Moo-sung described homosexuality as "an outrage against humanity",
urging voters to reject candidates who supported LGBTQ rights. He described Democratic assemblywoman
Nam In-soon
Nam In-soon (Korean: 남인순, born 5 November 1958) is a South Korean activist and feminist politician, currently a member of National Assembly representing Songpa C constituency. In August 2018, she was elected as one of the Vice Presidents o ...
as a pro-gay advocate for supporting the revision of a military criminal law in 2013 to include men as well as women as potential victims of sexual assault.
The Christian Liberal Party also rallied vociferously against LGBTQ rights and stoked Islamophobia, calling on voters to "protect our families from homosexuality and Islam".
Opinion polls
![Opinion polling for the 2016 South Korean legislative election](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/14/Opinion_polling_for_the_2016_South_Korean_legislative_election.png)
Opinion polls from prior to the election had suggested the Saenuri Party would win the election outright, and were confounded by Saenuri underperformance in constituencies and the comparative success of the Democratic and People's parties. The
KBS exit poll on 13 April showed the Saenuri Party winning a plurality with between 121 and 143 seats, and the Democratic Party taking 101–123; other exit polls projected similar results. South Korean law had prohibited the publication of opinion polls in the week before the elections, beginning on 7 April.
;General notes
* Gallup Korea provides poll results only to the nearest whole number.
Results
![Korean ballots box](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/23/Korean_ballots_box.jpg)
Prior to the election, it was widely expected that the Saenuri Party would emerge victorious due to divisions in the opposition and an intensified national security climate. Speculation had focused on whether the party would be able to attain a three-fifths majority. In contrast to expectations, however, the Saenuri Party was delivered a decisive defeat, losing not only its majority but also its status as largest party in the Assembly.
The Democratic Party took a one-seat plurality, and the opposition outnumbered the governing party for the first time in 16 years,
while the centrist People Party also emerged as a new force in South Korean politics, holding the balance of power in the elected Assembly.
The result was seen as posing significant problems for then-President Park,
who was rendered unable to press forward with her legislative agenda without opposition support. News sources labelled Park a "
lame duck" president, with the ''
Chosun Ilbo
''The Chosun Ilbo'' (, ) is a daily newspaper in South Korea and the oldest daily newspaper in the country. With a daily circulation of more than 1,800,000, the ''Chosun Ilbo'' has been audited annually since the Audit Bureau of Circulations w ...
'' saying that her "lame duck period has started earlier than any other administration in the past".
Eleven independents were elected, of whom seven were former Saenuri members who had been deselected by the party in the nominations process prior to the election:
Yoo Seong-min,
Joo Ho-young
Joo Ho-young (Korean: 주호영, born 8 January 1960) is a South Korean judge and politician who served as the interim Chairman of the conservative United Future Party (UFP)/ People Power Party (PPP) in May 2020, and again from 8 to 30 April 2 ...
,
Ahn Sang-soo,
Yoon Sang-hyun
Yoon Sang-hyun (born September 21, 1973) is a South Korean actor and singer. He is best known for his roles in ''Queen of Housewives'' (2009), ''My Fair Lady'' (2009), '' Secret Garden'' (2011) and ''I Can Hear Your Voice'' (2013).
Career
Yoo ...
,
Kang Ghil-boo,
Chang Je-won, and
Lee Chul-gyu.
Meanwhile, a number of high-profile Saenuri figures were defeated in the constituency elections, including
Oh Se-hoon
Oh Se-hoon (Korean: 오세훈, Hanja: 吳世勳; born January 4, 1961) is a South Korean politician who is currently the serving Mayor of Seoul since 8 April 2021. He also previously served as a member of the National Assembly of South Korea ...
, former
Mayor of Seoul
The Mayor of Seoul () is the chief executive of Seoul Metropolitan Government, Seoul being the capital and largest city of South Korea.
The position is historically one of the most powerful in the country, charged with managing an annual budget ...
, who had been positioning himself for the 2017 presidential race; senior lawmaker and former presidential candidate
Lee Jae-oh
Lee Jae-oh ( ko, link=no, 이재오, RR: ''Yi Jae-o'', Hanja: 李在五; born 11 January 1945) is a conservative South Korean politician of the New Party 2018. He was member of the National Assembly for Eunpyeong-gu in Seoul, and served as Mini ...
; and
Deputy Prime Minister
A deputy prime minister or vice prime minister is, in some countries, a government minister who can take the position of acting prime minister when the prime minister is temporarily absent. The position is often likened to that of a vice president, ...
and former party chairman
Hwang Woo-yea
Hwang Woo-yea ( ko, 황우여, Hanja: 黃祐呂; born 3 August 1947) is a Korean jurist, politician, and former chairman of the Saenuri Party. Hwang represents the electorate centred on Yeonsu District, Incheon in the National Assembly of S ...
.
By region
The table below lists constituency totals and list vote percentages in each region. Since the election was run under a
parallel voting
Parallel voting is a type of mixed electoral system in which representatives are voted into a single chamber using two or more different systems, most often first-past-the-post voting (FPTP) with party-list proportional representation (PR). It is ...
system, electors could choose to vote for one party in their constituencies while voting for another party's national list. Exit polls indicated that 12.9% of those who had voted for the Saenuri Party in their constituencies and 20.8% of those for the Democratic Party supported the People Party list.
;Maps of regional party-list vote by party performance
File:Proportional representatives of legislative election 2016 Minjoo.svg, Democratic
File:Proportional representatives of legislative election 2016 Saenuri.svg, Saenuri
File:Proportional representatives of legislative election 2016 People.svg, People's
File:Proportional representatives of legislative election 2016 Justice.svg, Justice
Aftermath
The day after the election, Saenuri chairman Kim Moo-sung tendered his resignation over his party's defeat, saying that he would "take responsibility for the resounding defeat in the general elections";
Kim Tae-ho, a member of the party's Supreme Council, and secretary-general
Hwang Jin-ha also announced their resignation. After the mass resignation of the party leadership, the party established an emergency committee led by floor leader
Won Yoo-chul to lead the party on an interim basis. In order to regain the party's plurality in the Assembly, Won announced that Saenuri would receive independent lawmakers who had previously been deselected by the party back into its ranks.
Ahn Sang-soo, one of the deselected candidates who had re-entered the Assembly as an independent, declared his desire to rejoin the party, while another,
Yoo Seong-min, stated that he would rejoin at an appropriate time.
President Park stated on 18 April that she "humbly accepted" the election result, and would "closely cooperate with the new National Assembly".
A survey conducted in the two days following the election showed Park's approval rating falling to 31.5 percent, her lowest ratings in office yet and 8.1 percentage points down from the week before the election.
The election was seen to have a limited effect on the Korean stock market, since the prospect of a hung parliament appeared to diminish the chance of ambitious economic policies being implemented.
Nonetheless, on a more limited scale, the performance of companies tied to prominent figures reflected the election results: shares in AhnLab, Inc., whose founder and largest stakeholder is People Party co-chairman Ahn Cheol-soo, had risen 5.2% by 2 p.m. KST on 14 April following Ahn's election success, while textile company Chonbang, chaired by Kim Moo-sung's brother, fell 19.2% in the same time frame.
See also
*
Notes
References
{{South Korean elections
Legislative elections in South Korea
South Korea
South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...
Legislative
A legislature is an assembly with the authority to make laws for a political entity such as a country or city. They are often contrasted with the executive and judicial powers of government.
Laws enacted by legislatures are usually known as p ...
Legislative
A legislature is an assembly with the authority to make laws for a political entity such as a country or city. They are often contrasted with the executive and judicial powers of government.
Laws enacted by legislatures are usually known as p ...