It is now official that President Park Geun-hye’s Saenuri Party has lost their majority in the Korean parliament after recent elections:
Saenuri Party leaders — Reps. Kim Moo-sung (C), Won Yoo-chul (L) and Kim Tae-ho — attend a ceremony marking the disbandment of the party’s election campaign committee at the National Assembly on April 14, 2016 (Yonhap).
“We will make sure to get rid of our arrogance and self-righteousness by gravely reflecting upon the warning issued by the people through this election,” read a group text message a defeated Saenuri Party candidate sent to his constituents on Thursday.
Such humble words were echoed by a number of his colleagues, as the ruling party was reeling from the crushing defeat that stripped it of the status of majority and No.1 parliamentary party.
Indeed, protracting economic doldrums, the party’s factional fighting, and the Park Geun-hye government’s inflexibility and lack of interaction with the legislature, ordinary citizens and other members of society are blamed for the party’s landslide loss in Wednesday’s general election, observers said. [Korea Herald]
The big winner in the parliamentary election was former presidential candidate Ahn Cheol-soo:
Rep. Ahn Cheol-soo, co-chair of the minority People’s Party, was seen as the biggest winner in the elections. His party won 38 seats, far more than the 20-seat requirement to form a parliamentary negotiating bloc.
The party pledged to become a “genuine representative” to realize people’s aspirations for a change in politics.
“We will pay back with the kind of politics that changes politics, the government and the lives of the people,” he said during a meeting with his party officials. [Yonhap]
Ahn’s parliamentary electoral success may end up being a good jumping board for him to launch another presidential election campaign, especially if the economy continues to be flat in Korea. Ahn could use his businessman background much like Donald Trump does in the US to burnish his credentials to be the next President.
From a US perspective what I think people should look at is whether the election results will cause any softening in President Park’s current hardline policy on North Korea and the deployment of the THAAD missile defense system to Korea.
If the ruling Saenuri political party loses its majority it will be interesting to see if that has any affect on President Park’s current tough stance on North Korea as well as the deployment of the THAAD missile defense system to the peninsula:
South Korea’s ruling Saenuri Party is slightly ahead of its main opposition rival in Wednesday’s tightly contested parliamentary elections, though it may not win a parliamentary majority, an exit poll said.
An exit poll by South Korea’s public broadcaster KBS predicted that the ruling Saenuri Party could win between 121-143 while the main opposition Minjoo Party could secure between 101-123 seats out of the total 300 seats up for grabs.
KBS conducted the joint exit poll with two other broadcasters MBC and SBS, though they have different predictions on the results of the elections as they use different tools.
The poll released by MBC showed the ruling party winning between 118-136 seats against the Minjoo Party’s 107-128 seats.
An SBS poll forecast the ruling party winning between 123-147 seats and the Minjoo Party securing 97-120 seats.
The minor opposition People’s Party is projected to win between 31-43 seats while independent candidates are expected to secure between 8-20 seats, according to the poll released by the three broadcasters. [Yonhap]
This is definitely a long shot to ever happen, but if there was ever going to be conditions for someone like General Mattis to be elected President this is probably about as good as they will ever be:
General Mattis may be called back into action to serve his country — this time possibly assuming the role of Commander-in-Chief.
According to The Daily Beast, an anonymous collective of conservatives are in a position to persuade General James “Mad Dog” Mattis, the retired Marine Corps commander who has a reputation as a superb combat leader with excellent rapport with his men.
Considered a contingency action if Trump gets the nomination by the Republicans in Ohio,
Mattis could swing the vote and disrupt operations, even as a third-party candidate.
“Everyone is hoping that Ted Cruz pulls it out, but I think a great deal of Republicans would rally behind an American hero if the choice is between Mattis and Trump,” said John Noonan, a former Jeb Bush aide now involved in the project to draft Mattis.
“He’s a man of character and integrity. He’s given his life to his country. How do you ask someone like that to leap headfirst into this toxic mud-puddle of a race? It’s damn hard. But Trump is a fascist lunatic and Hillary has one foot in a jail cell. That means the lunatic can win. I’d be first in line to plead with the general to come save America,” Noonan added.
While a Mattis victory would not be an easy task, the primary strategy appears to be that of political insurgency — denying Clinton and Trump the 270 electoral votes needed to outright win a general election. On top of that, the benefactors of the Mattis camp would have to undertake the challenge of getting Mattis on the ballot in a large number of states. [USMC Life]
If he did try and third party candidacy could you imagine the awesome quotes he would give on the campaign trail. Here is just one from this article:
Mattis has gone on record in saying that he feels he could not endure the political correctness involved in being a Presidential candidate.
“I’ve lived a very colorful life and I’ve said some things,” Mattis told an audience last year. “But not once have I taken them back, and I’ve never apologized for them — and I won’t. I like the enemy knowing there are a few guys like me around.”
You can read much more on how the strategy to get him elected would work at the link.
I have always said that Trump’s claims that South Korea is getting a free ride is inaccurate and Ambassador Lippert is calling him out on it as well. Trump should specify what he thinks South Korea should pay if he wants to criticize like this because South Korea pays a lot more than many other nations getting a free ride off of the US defense umbrella. With that said Trump probably fully knows that South Korea pays a lot already and is just repeating the claim that resonates with low information voters:
Amb. Mark Lippert speaks to members of the American Chamber of Commerce in Korea at a Seoul hotel on March 28, 2016. (Yonhap)
U.S. Ambassador to Seoul Mark Lippert on Monday dismissed accusations by Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump that South Korea is paying little to keep American troops on its soil.
Without naming Trump, Lippert cited various reasons why the allegations aren’t true, including the fact that South Korea shoulders 55 percent of all non-personnel costs and increases its defense spending by 3 to 5 percent annually.
“We feel very good about the resource sharing that we and the Republic of Korea do together as an alliance,” the ambassador said during a meeting with members of the American Chamber of Commerce in Korea. “It is remarkable.”
Lippert was responding to a request for comments on a “U.S. political candidate’s” contentions that the country receives little from South Korea in exchange for its support.
Trump has made repeated claims that South Korea is getting a free ride on defense, saying recently that the U.S. is “constantly sending our ships, sending our planes, doing our war games” but being “reimbursed a fraction of what this is all costing.” He also told The New York Times he would withdraw American troops from South Korea and Japan unless they boost their financial contributions to the upkeep of the U.S. military presence. [Yonhap]
Here is something that all servicemembers should keep in mind this political campaign season:
In a year that will undoubtedly be headlined by politics both national and local, the Air Force is warning airmen to watch what they say and how they say it.
With the 2016 presidential election just nine months away, the Air Force released an informational video last week, reminding airmen of Department of Defense regulations on discussing politics on social media.
In the video, Tech. Sgt. Holly Roberts-Davis cites a long-established DoD directive that prohibits active-duty military members from directly participating in partisan political activities, but includes updates as the policy relates to social media.
Things like campaigning for a candidate, soliciting donations to a particular campaign and even wearing a military uniform to a partisan political event have long been outlawed by the military, Roberts-Davis says in the video. But 21st century ways of communicating have extended those same concepts to the online world.
Roberts-Davis says active-duty military members are generally allowed to express political views on social media platforms, but there are several important caveats.
“If that social media site, or your post identifies you as on active-duty … then you must clearly and prominently state that the views expressed are those of you as an individual only and not those of the Department of Defense or your service,” Roberts-Davis says. [Stars & Stripes]
Over at One Free Korea, there is a great update on the current actions going on in Washington, DC in response to the latest North Korean nuclear test. It appears the one thing Democrats and Republicans can agree on is that the “strategic patience” strategy with North Korea has not worked. So Congress is moving forward with their own sanctions package which is forcing the executive branch to preempt this by trying to implement their own new sanctions on North Korea. Whatever the sanctions are it seems to me if it does not include threatening to cut off banks’ access to the US financial system for conducting business with North Korea it will not work to curb their nuclear program:
The leaders of the House Foreign Affairs Committee: Chairman Ed Royce (R, CA) and Ranking Member Elliot Engel (D, NY)]
So far, so good, but then, Nakamura’s sources criticize the President for not trying hard enough to get a deal, which isn’t quite fair. As The Wall Street Journaltold us yesterday, “U.S. officials say they have repeatedly tried to engage North Korea in dialogue about its nuclear program in recent months, but Pyongyang hasn’t responded to their advances.” It sounds self-serving, but the recordsupports that contention. Besides which, the harder American presidents try to “engage” North Korea, the worse their results tend to be.
In this climate, all the administration can really do is shift the focus to its push for tougher sanctions at the U.N. It needs a win in New York to make up for what looks like a general rout of its North Korea (non-) policy in Washington. The administration will probably announce new bilateral sanctions under existing executive orders to preempt some of the momentum in Congress, but I doubt that will appease Congress now. The administration can forget about any new diplomatic initiatives. Its goal now is to avoid a greater crisis, and to keep North Korea from sapping its credibility on other foreign policy issues. [One Free Korea]
Head of South Korea’s ruling Saenuri Party Rep. Kim Moo-sung (third from R) poses for a picture with party members and supporters before the start of a mountain climbing event in the southern port city of Busan on Dec. 19, 2015 to mark the party’s victory in the presidential election three years earlier. (Yonhap)
