In South Korea, general elections are most often a vote of confidence in or rejection of the current president. The results of the recent election held on Wednesday, April 10 were – beyond a reflection of public opinion about the parties' platforms – a repudiation of the policies of the current president, Yoon Suk Yeol. A former prosecutor general with no political experience, Yoon had already been elected by a very slim majority in March 2022. Now he's about to be deprived of the ability to act. "If that were to happen, Yoon will be a dead duck, not only a lame duck," in the words of political commentator Bae Kang-hun.

His hopes of improving the position of the People's Power Party (PPP), his party (114 deputies, compared to the 154 of the center-left Democratic Party (PD) in the previous assembly), were disappointed: voters gave the PPP the boot, further increasing the Democrats' majority. The governing party lost almost 20 seats.

According to the exit polls, the Democratic Party and the smaller opposition parties should win over 200 seats, putting them in a position to counter the president or even unseat him. Among the smaller parties that are opposed to Yoon, which received votes from moderates, the brand-new Reform Party (RP), which is emerging as a small centrist third voice, took between 12 and 14 seats. These figures, which have yet to be confirmed by the electoral commission on Thursday, April 11, nonetheless point to a crushing defeat for the conservative camp and the president himself.

With its new majority and the support of smaller parties, the DP can not only override a presidential veto – which Yoon has used to avoid an investigation into the antics of his wife, who allegedly took a meeting in exchange for a Dior bag – but also take measures to impeach or even remove the president, which requires two-thirds of the votes in the Assembly.

Since Yoon came to power, political polarization has been exacerbated. Every government decision has been viewed through the lens of passionately and virulently partisan perspectives – resentment from some and equally blind support from others. In this charged atmosphere, rife with petty invective, the president's party announced that it would bring the leader of the DP – Lee Jae-myung, who had run unsuccessfully in the 2022 presidential election – "to justice." For his part, Lee said he intended to "punish" the head of state. These elections have heightened passions around politics in South Korea – not without violence, as evidenced by the early January knife attack on Lee.

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