“I hear you.” Han Dong-hoon, an interim leader of the ruling People Power Party (PPP)’s interim committee, tried to make ordinary citizens more visible in Korea’s political scene.

He singled out hard-working janitors who kept the Ministry of Justice clean, an Incheon-based self-employed person who kindly offered his spa as a shelter for displaced residents after North Korea’s artillery attacks on the island of Yeonpyeong and a good samaritan who helped a citizen who was attacked by a violent passenger in a subway as dedicated community members who set an example for other citizens.

His recognition of these citizens’ small but meaningful deeds publicly seems to be part of his tactics to break the stereotypes of the ruling party, which is often described as a party for the haves and make him and his party more approachable to what he calls “fellow citizens.”

The prosecutor-turned-politician seeks to reach out to the grassroots as the National Assembly elections approach, with less than four months to go.

T
he April 10 election is the most important political event of this year for President Yoon Suk Yeol, as its results will determine how his remaining three-year presidency will evolve.

Most of his reforms have been stuck in partisan politics since he took office on May 10, 2022, mainly because the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) controls the legislative body with 167 seats out of 300 seats.

Yoon, a prosecutor-turned-president, should be fully aware of the significance of the elections. It’s not a coincidence that his right-hand man, former Justice Minister Han Dong-hoon, joined the ruling party in late December as the leader of its interim committee, which is tasked with preparing campaign affairs.

There is a lot Han can do in that capacity. Among other things, he will, sooner or later, appoint a chairperson to the selection committee, which is in charge of fielding candidates to run in the elections on the PPP’s tickets. Han himself can also exert a great deal of influence in the selection
of candidates to run in the elections.

Every privilege comes with a responsibility.

With the enormous mandate given to him, the former justice minister can make or break Yoon’s remaining years in the presidency.

In this sense, Han is a double-edged sword for Yoon.

Yoon and Han share a common fate.

If the ruling party successfully secures a majority status in the April elections, they both will gain an impetus for their political careers. Yoon will be able to push through his reform agenda without major hurdles in the parliament. Meanwhile, Han, owing to his decisive role behind the election result, will find it easier to position himself early on as a standard-bearer of the conservative camp to run in the next presidential election.

But in the event of the ruling party’s defeat, Yoon and Han will face the consequences together. Depending on the circumstances, their political careers could be endangered.

In politics, there is a single strategy to win elections: Politicians need to consolidate support fr
om home-turf voters while adding more votes from swing city or province residents to increase the odds of winning.

Korean politicians use a rabbit analogy when describing voters. You need to turn both domesticated rabbits (traditional supporters) and wild rabbits (swing voters) in your favor.

The lineup of the ruling party’s interim committee members, unveiled in late December, shows that Han is paying greater attention to the “wild rabbits.”

The eight people he handpicked consist mostly of people critical of “Generation 586” and people from disadvantaged backgrounds, such as a 22-year-old activist who helps fellow orphans stand on their own two feet.

In Korean politics, Generation 586 refers to student activists-turned-politicians. The three digits of 586, are a combination of numbers indicating people who are in their fifties (5), went to college in the 1980s (8) and those who were born in the sixties (6).

In Korea’s political scene, Generation 586 politicians are the ones who took to the streets in th
e 1980s to take down then-President Chun Doo-hwan who rose to power through a military coup.

Decades later, those who led the pro-democracy protests joined the National Assembly after winning elections. Several leaders of the main opposition party, the DPK, are Generation 586 politicians.

Han characterized them as politicians with vested interests who are responsible for leading the nation in the wrong direction, stressing that such politics must come to an end.

The prosecutor-turned-politician’s picks of several left-leaning figures to fill the interim committee caused a stir from within. Some conservative activists allege that Han prioritized wild rabbits at the expense of domesticated rabbits, urging him to help a few conservatives get on board.

It remains to be seen whether his political experiment to widen the political spectrum of the conservative ruling party by placing several “unusual suspects” in the decision-making body can help it appeal to the hearts and minds of voters.

Source: Yonhap News
Agency