[The Editors' Verdict] The Biggest Dark Horse in the Seoul Mayoral By-Election

Park Sang-byeong, Political Commentator

[Asia Economy] Now, about ten days remain. The April 7 by-election is highly likely to serve as a directional indicator for political changes, given that it is held 11 months ahead of next year’s presidential election. Immediately after the by-election, both the Democratic Party and the People Power Party must form new leadership through their respective party conventions. In particular, the People Power Party must finally end its long-standing emergency committee system and establish a fully legitimate party leadership. Depending on the by-election results, the balance of power within the party as well as the overall reorganization of the opposition camp will inevitably shift.

Oh Se-hoon, the People Power Party’s Seoul mayoral candidate, whose unification victory with Ahn Cheol-soo, leader of the People’s Party, has gained momentum, is showing strong support. Summarizing recent opinion polls, he holds a gap of nearly 20 percentage points over Park Young-sun, the Democratic Party candidate. Of course, this is largely due to the maximized convention effect from the ‘unification game’ and simultaneously because public opinion critical of the Moon Jae-in administration has swung toward Oh. In other words, Oh’s support rate has not risen due to any particular policy or capability. This is an important point. It serves as a basis for doubting that the current support rate will continue unchanged. The situation can easily be overturned by small variables. Ten days is by no means a short period in election politics.

Then, what might be the hidden votes, or ‘dark horses,’ that do not appear in the current various opinion polls? As is well known, opinion polls often reflect the ‘image effect’ at a specific point in time, which determines the trend. Moreover, response rates are very low. Therefore, it is too much to expect that the current opinion polls alone can predict the voting results. In this regard, conducting a unification primary based solely on opinion polls to separate winners and losers is close to ‘nonsense’ in election politics. No matter how harshly one criticizes the level of politics, elections have value beyond just a ‘show.’

People who do not want to reveal their political intentions in opinion polls are inevitably excluded. Even if they respond to polls, it is difficult to believe they express their political intentions honestly. This is especially true in our case, where political awareness is relatively high. Furthermore, since our election politics is characterized by ‘camp confrontation,’ it is not uncommon for people to hide the truth in opinion polls. Therefore, it is very important to identify who mainly excludes themselves from opinion polls and who, even if they respond, do not speak truthfully.

We can infer three major groups. First, those who support the Moon Jae-in administration but are considerably dissatisfied with recent government management. They likely think there is no need to respond to opinion polls. Second, those dissatisfied with the opposition’s candidate unification process. They strongly reject the approach of treating election politics as a ‘game’ and see opinion polls themselves as meaningless. Third, those with a thoroughly moderate stance. Since they have no one to vote for, opinion polls are meaningless to them as well.

Combining these three groups leads to a rough conclusion. There is a broadly formed hidden voter base in the so-called ‘shy moderate and progressive camp’ that does not appear well in opinion polls. If these voters turn out in large numbers at the polls, the election results will be completely different. Then, each party’s election strategy is relatively straightforward: whether they can mobilize the ‘shy moderate and progressive camp’ to come to the polls or leave them at home. Therefore, policies and empathy that move the ‘shy moderate and progressive camp’ will be more important than ever in this election.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.