Minor parties fail to break Korea's two-party mold with disappointing local election, by-election results

The June 3 local elections turned into a two-party affair for the liberal Democratic Party (DP) and the conservative People Power Party (PPP), leaving the country's smaller parties with almost nothing to show. 

The minor liberal Rebuilding Korea Party (RKP) and conservative Reform Party watched their candidates lose one after another, showing that third parties still cannot break Korea's two-party mold.

RKP leader Cho Kuk finished third in the National Assembly by-election for Pyeongtaek-B constituency in Gyeonggi, taking 27.24 percent of the vote as counting wrapped up on Thursday. Yu Eui-dong of the PPP won the seat with 34.83 percent, securing his fourth term. Cho even trailed the DP's Kim Yong-nam, who had 28.77 percent of the votes.

"This is my shortcoming and my responsibility," Cho said on Thursday. "I humbly accept the election results."

Bae Su-jin, who ran for the RKP in Gwangju's Gwangsan-B constituency, fared even worse. She drew 16.24 percent of the votes and lost to the DP's Im Mun-yeong, who won with 62.85 percent.

The RKP fielded 261 candidates nationwide, but only 39 won.

The party went on the offensive in the southwestern Jeolla region, declaring a fight for the region and nominating 22 candidates for basic-level local government posts across South Jeolla, Gwangju and North Jeolla. It won just two of them: Jangheung County governor and Shinan County governor, both in South Jeolla.

In the 2024 general elections, the party had taken 45.53 percent of the party-list vote in the Jeolla region, better than the 38.07 percent won by the Democratic Alliance of Korea, the DP's satellite proportional party.

That momentum was nowhere to be found this time. Most of the RKP's other winners came only in races that favor smaller parties: local council seats that send two to four winners each under the multimember district system, and proportional seats on metropolitan and local councils allotted by party vote share.

The bruising fight in Pyeongtaek also pushed the DP and the RKP apart, after the two had cooperated as allied parties, as they called themselves.

Tensions boiled over after Kim Yong-nam accused Cho Kuk of falsely portraying himself as a Democratic Party candidate. Cho hit back with a string of negative attacks, including criticism of Kim's past inflammatory remarks about the Sewol ferry incident.

Kim, back when he was in the Saenuri Party, a predecessor of the PPP, called the Sewol ferry investigation a waste of taxpayers' money. 

Behind-the-scenes talks on merging their candidacies in Pyeongtaek-B constituency collapsed as the bad blood deepened.

"It will be hard for the two parties to repair their relationship for some time," a DP lawmaker from the greater Seoul area said.

The Reform Party came away with an equally grim scorecard. It ran 190 candidates but elected just one city councilor in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi. 

Its candidates for metropolitan mayor and governor in Seoul, Busan, Daegu, Incheon, Daejeon, Sejong and Gyeonggi all finished with single-digit support. 

In the Seoul mayoral race, Reform Party candidate Kim Jeong-cheol took 0.82 percent. He even trailed two candidates from parties with no seats in the National Assembly: the Justice Party's Kwon Young-kook, at 1.04 percent, and the Women's Party's Yoo Ji-hye, at 0.84 percent.

Reform Party leader Lee Jun-seok addressed the loss at a ceremony disbanding the party's central election committee at the National Assembly on Thursday.

"The responsibility for our fine candidates failing to win the results they deserved lies with us , who could not back them with enough party strength," Lee said.

"I am sorry that we could not provide meaningful support," floor leader Chun Ha-ram said. "We will reflect on how the Reform Party can win more support from the public, in discussion with our candidates."

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.

BY KANG BO-HYUN [[email protected]]