It has been a good week for President Moon Jae-in:
The ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) has swept the local elections as well as by-elections for 12 empty National Assembly seats.
According to exit polls and the vote count by midnight Wednesday, the DPK clinched 14 out of 17 governor and mayoral posts. The largest conservative Liberty Korea Party (LKP) managed to win in the mayoral and governor elections in Daegu and North Gyeongsang Province ― its traditional strongholds. Independent candidate Won Hee-ryong won the Jeju governor’s post.
The DPK overwhelmingly won in southeast regions including South Gyeongsang Province, Ulsan and Busan, exit polls showed. The party had never won elections in these regions before. The outcome means the liberal party successfully overcame deep-rooted hostilities in these areas, largely thanks to the high popularity of President Moon Jae-in. [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but I have always said that President Moon may be a leftist, but he is an extremely smart leftist. Does anyone think it was just a coincidence that the Trump-Kim summit was timed to happen right before the election? Also look at how Moon buried the damaging Druking scandal by naming a special prosecutor right before the Trump-Kim summit. This timing assured that the news would be buried by coverage of the summit.
Finally the Moon administration has been able to effectively take over control of most of the major media outlets in South Korea. Unless his North Korea policies end up imploding over the next year I expect that President Moon and thus the LKP will remain popular in South Korea.
