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With almost all votes counted, the DPK won 161 out of 254 directly contested seats, while the PPP won only 90 seats. Including proportional seats, the DPK and its satellite party were expected to win 176 seats and the PPP and its satellite party 109 seats in the 300-member National Assembly.

The wider opposition bloc, including the Rebuilding Korea Party led by scandal-tainted former Justice Minister Cho Kuk, is expected to win more than 180 seats combined, as Cho’s party is expected to secure 12-14 proportional seats.

The New Future Party (Saemirae), formed by former Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon, and the New Reform Party led by ousted former PPP leader Lee Jun-seok are expected to secure one and three seats, respectively.

The results illustrated the seriously soured public sentiment toward the Yoon administration just two years after he came into office, with the PPP barely managing to prevent the broader opposition bloc from taking a two-thirds majority.

In the previous elections four year ago, the then ruling DPK also clinched a landslide victory by securing a combined 180 seats with its satellite party while the United Future Party, the PPP’s former name, and its sister party got 103 seats.

Of the votes cast for the 46 proportional seats, more than 93 percent have been counted.

In the proportional race, the PPP’s sister People Future Party was leading with 37 percent, followed by the DPK’s sister Democratic United Party with 27 percent and Cho’s Rebuilding Korea Party with 24 percent.

This year’s vote carried extra weight for the PPP as a failure to regain a majority could potentially render the Yoon administration a lame duck for the remaining three years of his single five-year term, ending in 2027.

The PPP has pleaded for voter support, imploring that the Yoon administration has been unable to push its reform agenda properly forward for the past two years due to the uncooperative parliament under opposition control.

The DPK, on the other hand, has urged voters to pass stern judgment on what it calls the “incompetent” Yoon administration, accusing it of causing the economy and the livelihoods of the people to worsen seriously and mishandling a series of controversial issues for the past two years.

Following the release of exit poll results Wednesday, PPP leader Han Dong-hoon expressed disappointment.

“The PPP did its best to do politics that uphold the will of the people, but the exit poll results are disappointing,” Han said after watching the results at the National Assembly with party members. “We will watch the results of vote counting until the end.”

Han is set to make an announcement regarding the election outcome later, probably after the final outcome, contrary to the tradition of the party leader making the announcement amid the voting count.

Following the announcement of his victory against former Land Minister Won Hee-ryong of the PPP in Incheon’s Gyeyang-B district early Thursday, DPK Chairman Lee emphasized that he will stop the regression of the country’s state affairs and make it move toward the future once again.

Cho, the former justice minister, also hailed the exit poll results as a victory for the people.

“The people have won,” Cho said after watching the exit polls Wednesday. “The people have made their intent clear that it is a verdict handed down to the Yoon Suk Yeol government.”

Cho said the results showed that the people can “no longer put up with the regression” of the government, urging Yoon to humbly accept the election outcome.

In the wider Seoul area, considered the primary battleground that ultimately shapes the election outcome, the DPK swept 102 out of 122 constituencies.

The DPK also grabbed 53 seats in Gyeonggi Province with 60 seats at stake. The region is traditionally considered a stronghold for the party.

In contrast, some PPP candidates emerged victorious in some districts in the region after closely contested races.

In Seoul’s Dongjak-B district, Na Kyung-won of the PPP secured a victory against DPK candidate Ryu Sam-young.

In a surprise outcome, Lee Jun-seok, an ousted former leader of the PPP, also secured his first-ever parliamentary seat in the Hwaseong-B district in Gyeonggi Province.

Voter turnout recorded the highest in 32 years.

A total of 14,259 polling stations across the nation closed at 6 p.m. Wednesday, after some 29.66 million, or 67 percent, of the total 44.28 million eligible voters had cast their ballots for 12 hours, according to the National Election Commission. The results were tentative.

The turnout was 0.8 percentage point higher than the 2020 tally of 66.2 percent, marking the highest turnout for general elections since 1992, when the turnout came in at 71.9 percent. (Yonhap)

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The resounding victory for Yoon’s party came less than three months after he won the presidential election by a narrow margin against his opponent and just three weeks after he took office.

After vote counting for Wednesday’s local and by-elections ended on Thursday, the PPP clinched 12 out of 17 provincial governor and metropolitan mayor posts. The DPK won in governor elections in Gyeonggi Province, Jeju Province, and South and North Jeolla provinces as well as the Gwangju mayoral race.

In the race for Gyeonggi Province governor, PPP candidate Kim Eun-Hye maintained an early lead, but DPK candidate Kim Dong-Yeon staged an upset to win by 49.06 percent to 48.91 percent after all votes were counted on early Thursday morning.

Along with the large municipalities, the PPP swept 170 out of 226 mayors, district head and county governor posts, followed by the DPK with 63, the Jinbo (Progressive) Party with one and 17 independent candidates.

In the parliamentary by-elections in seven constituencies, five PPP candidates clinched their Assembly seats and two were claimed by the DPK candidates. This resulted in the DPK holding 169 seats in the assembly, followed by the PPP with 114, the Justice Party with six, and two other parties each having one seat. There are eight independent lawmakers and one seat remains unoccupied.

Presidential spokeswoman Kang In-Seon, Thursday, quoted Yoon as saying that he took the election results as “the people’s wish to revive the economy and take better care of the public’s livelihood.”

“To this end, the central government will join hands with local governments to shoulder difficulties together,” Yoon was quoted as saying. “The Yoon government will spare no efforts to stabilize the public’s livelihood, with its economy-first principle.”

With members of the PPP claiming most of the major posts in the elections, the ruling party will control the central and local governments, while the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) will have its grip only on legislative power. The DPK still holds a majority in the 300-seat Assembly.

This will pave the way for the Yoon administration’s initiative to lay the groundwork for the president to introduce his economic initiatives and policies for balanced regional development. As the elections also proved that the public has grown weary of the DPK, the main opposition party is anticipated to be more cooperative with Yoon’s policies, rather than holding them back.

The PPP celebrated its victories in the elections but pledged not to be arrogant about the results, saying that doing so could make the party repeat the failures and mistakes the DPK committed.

“Voters gave our party sweeping support, a result we should be thankful for and also be afraid of,” PPP Chairman Lee Jun-Seok said during a party meeting, Thursday.

“After winning big in the National Assembly elections held two years ago, the DPK has been intoxicated by its victory and has been wayward without listening to what others said. Now they are grappling with this contrasting result just two years later.”

Democratic Party of Korea co-interim chiefs Yun Ho-Jung, fourth from left, and 
Park Ji-Hyun, fifth from left, bow in apology with other interim leaders of the 
main opposition party during their press conference at the National Assembly, 
Seoul, Thursday. They resigned from their posts to take responsibility for 
the party's crushing defeat in the local and by-elections a day earlier.
 Korea Times photo by Oh Dae-Keun

DPK rocked by the internal rift

The DPK took the results as “a crushing defeat” and promised to reform itself, with its interim chiefs and leadership resigning from their posts.

“We would like to offer our apology to our colleagues and people who supported us,” DPK co-interim chief Yun Ho-Jung said during a press conference at the National Assembly, Thursday. “Also, we deeply appreciate all of those who have believed and supported us despite our shortcomings.”

Despite the leadership’s resignation, voices are growing inside the party that Lee Jae-Myung, a former DPK presidential candidate who lost to Yoon and became a lawmaker in the by-elections, should take the responsibility, signaling an internal rift between pro-and anti-Lee factions.

Lee Nak-yon, a former DPK chairman who staged a fierce rivalry against Lee in the party’s presidential primary last year, criticized the party for its “weird response” to the elections by fielding the former presidential candidate in the latest election.

“The party again suffered a loss after engaging in the local elections as if nothing ever happened in the presidential election,” Lee wrote. “Its weird responses have aggravated the party’s condition. … The 37.7 percent voter turnout in Gwangju is a political impeachment against the DPK.”

Gwangju has been a traditional DPK stronghold.

DPK Rep. Cho Eung-Cheon also said in a radio interview Thursday that “(Lee’s National Assembly bid) was one of the reasons for this crushing defeat.”

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