S. Korea officials offering to resign
Follows defeat in election
SEOUL — South Korea’s prime minister and senior presidential officials offered to resign Thursday after their ruling party suffered a crushing defeat in parliamentary elections in a blow to conservative President Yoon Suk Yeol.
The results of Wednesday’s elections mean the liberal opposition forces will prolong their control of parliament until after Yoon completes his single five-year term in 2027. That is likely to set back Yoon’s domestic agenda and weaken his grip on the ruling party as he faces the opposition’s intensifying political offensive during his remaining three years in office, experts say.
Prime Minister Han Ducksoo and all senior presidential advisers to Yoon, except those in charge of security issues, expressed their intentions to resign, according to Yoon’s office. It didn’t immediately say whether Yoon accepted their resignations.
Executive power in South Korea is heavily concentrated in the president, but the prime minister is the No. 2 official and leads the country if the president becomes incapacitated.
Yoon said he will “humbly uphold” the public sentiments reflected in the election outcome and focus on improving people’s economic situations and reforming state affairs, said presidential chief of staff Lee Kwan-seop in a televised briefing. Lee said he also offered to quit.
In a separate news conference, ruling People Power Party leader Han Donghoon said he would step down as well to take responsibility for the election defeat.
“I apologize to the people on behalf of our party, which wasn’t good enough to win the people’s choices,” he said.
With all the votes counted, the main opposition Democratic Party and its satellite party won a combined 175 seats in the 300-member National Assembly.
Another small liberal opposition party obtained 12 seats under a proportional representation system, according to the National Election Commission.
Yoon’s People Power Party and its satellite party won 108 seats, the election commission said.
The final voter turnout for South Korea’s 44 million eligible voters was tentatively estimated at 67 percent, the highest for a parliamentary election since 1992, according to the election commission.
Regardless of the results, Yoon will stay in power and his major foreign policies will likely be unchanged. But the elections were widely seen as a midterm confidence vote on the former top prosecutor who took office in 2022.
Yoon has pushed hard to boost cooperation with the United States and Japan as a way to address a mix of tough security and economic challenges. But he has been grappling with low approval ratings at home and a liberal opposition-controlled National Assembly that has limited his major policy platforms that require legislative approvals.
Hong Sung Gul, a public administration specialist at Seoul’s Kookmin University, said Yoon will probably find it more difficult to implement business-friendly policies and tax reforms, as the opposition parties are likely to aggressively flex their legislative muscles.
“When it comes to policies, important ones like tax system reforms require legislation. I think there is a high possibility for the opposition parties to put a break on Yoon’s such policy agendas,” Hong said.
Yoon's critics have accused him of failing to resolve livelihood issues such as soaring prices, refusing to quickly fire some top officials implicated in scandals, and lacking efforts to communicate with opposition leaders for policy coordination.