Elections and Voting

After a historic election in South Korea, progressive Moon Jae-in is the country’s new president. Exit polls estimate Moon won 41% of the vote and conservative Hong Joon-pyo, his closest competitor, has conceded defeat, along with Moon’s other political rivals. President-elect Moon Jae-in will take office in a South Korea that has been consumed by domestic politics resulting from Park Geun-hye’s impeachment and a compressed national election campaign. But now as president, he will quickly be forced by rising Northeast Asian tensions to reassert South Korean political leadership that has been absent. Despite aspirations to enhance South Korea’s impact and voice, Moon will face a steep learning curve. A return to liberal foreign policy The Moon campaign template for foreign policy outlines a return to the liberal foreign policies that his political mentor Roh Moo-hyun followed a decade ago before conservatives re-took control of the Blue House. The Roh Moo-hyun administration, in which Moon Jae-in served as chief of staff, pursued greater autonomy while maintaining the U.S.-ROK alliance, sought greater balance in South Korea’s position between China and the United States, and emphasized inter-Korean and regional security cooperation by fostering regional economic and political integration. But a return to these priorities by the Moon administration face many obstacles that did not exist a decade ago. New obstacles First, the immediacy of Moon’s transition to power means that he and his team must switch gears from campaigning to governing within 24 hours. Moon will take office as president with a transitional government that will remain in place until a new prime minister and cabinet can win approval from a National Assembly that his Democratic Party does not control. The need for consensus within the National Assembly will influence the selection of Moon’s cabinet and will constrain his capacity to pass laws supporting his policy agenda. South Korean attitudes will form a second constraint on Moon’s approach to foreign policy. While there is agreement on the need for a clean start domestically, public approval for the security alliance with Washington and anxieties about China are high, while expectations for cooperation with North Korea are low. The South Korean public has moved in a conservative direction on major foreign policy issues over the past decade, and it will take time to build a successful record for the progressive Moon administration to reverse this trend. A different international landscape Third, the international landscape has changed drastically during the last decade, making it more difficult for Moon to implement many elements of his platform that had once been priorities under Roh Moo-hyun. North Korea’s pursuit of nuclear weapons has advanced and Kim Jong Un has tied his survival to the nuclear project. UN Security Council resolutions restrict many economic activities that were permissible when Moon was last in power. South Korean companies, burned by the closure of the Kaesong Industrial Complex in North Korea, have moved on. Moon and his advisors will have to convince North Korea to reverse its nuclear trajectory before dreams of a common Korean market will be feasible. Fourth, U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has moved forward in setting its policy toward North Korea while South Korea has been caught up in its own political leadership vacuum. Moon Jae-in comes into office as the concrete has begun to set on Trump administration preferences, albeit still self-contradictory and uncertain. Little room for error To be an effective advocate for South Korean interests, the liberal Moon must figure out both how to talk to Trump and how not to push buttons that might jeopardize the relationship.  The fact that Moon inherits deeper mechanisms for coordination between Washington and Seoul than existed a decade ago under Roh Moo-hyun will help keep the alliance moving in the right direction, but bad chemistry between the two leaders would do much to undermine deeply shared U.S.-ROK interests in a non-nuclear peninsula and a prosperous Northeast Asia. To achieve success, Moon Jae-in must restore South Korea’s confidence in the institutions of leadership at home while navigating a narrowing strategic space in Northeast Asia. It is a daunting task. Time will tell if Moon is up for the job. This post originally appeared on Forbes. Mr. Snyder’s upcoming book is South Korea at the Crossroads: Autonomy and Alliance in an Era of Rising Regional Rivalry.

MILAN – The first round of the French election turned out much as expected: the centrist Emmanuel Macron finished first, with 24% of the vote, rather narrowly beating the right-wing National Front’s Marine Le Pen, who won 21.3%. Barring a political accident of the type that befell the former frontrunner, conservative François Fillon, Macron will almost certainly win the second-round runoff against Le Pen on May 7. The European Union seems safe – for now. With the pro-EU Macron seemingly headed toward the Élysée Palace – the establishment candidates on the right and the left who lost in the first round have already endorsed him – the immediate threat to the EU and the eurozone seems to have subsided. But this is no time for complacency. Unless Europe addresses flaws in growth patterns and pursues urgent reforms, the longer-term risks to its survival will almost certainly continue to mount. And, as has often been noted, the French election, like other key votes over the past year, represents a rejection of establishment political parties: the Republicans’ Fillon came in third, with about 20% of the vote, and the Socialist Party’s Benoît Hamon finished fifth, with less than 6.5%. Meanwhile, the left-wing Euroskeptic Jean-Luc Mélenchon won 19.5%, putting the total share of voters who chose candidates of non-traditional parties – Le Pen, Macron, and Mélenchon – at nearly 65%. Unlike last year’s votes for Brexit in the United Kingdom and Donald Trump in the United States, which were driven by middle-class, middle-aged voters, in France, the young led the way in rejecting the establishment. Among 18-34-year-olds, Mélenchon – who has so far declined to endorse Macron for the second round – received roughly 27% of the vote. Le Pen was the second most popular candidate among young voters, especially the less educated. This trend is not exclusive to France. In Italy, the anti-establishment, Euroskeptic Five Star Movement has surpassed the center-left Democratic Party in recent polls, with the young comprising a significant share of that support. Likewise, in last December’s Italian referendum, younger voters formed a substantial share of the vote against the constitutional reforms – essentially a vote against then-Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, who had staked his political survival on their adoption. Of course, even in the face of weak and declining economic performance, there may be an upper limit to the support that populist parties can muster – a level that falls short of a governing mandate. But the fact that parties and candidates that reject the status quo are gaining ground, particularly among young people, reflects profound political polarization, which generates governance challenges that could impede reform. Yet reform is precisely what is needed to address these trends, which reflect fundamental problems with today’s prevailing growth patterns. In France, Italy, and Spain, growth is too slow, unemployment is high, and youth unemployment is even higher. In France, the youth-unemployment rate is in the neighborhood of 24%, and trending downward only slowly. Youth unemployment in Italy stands at 35%, and exceeds 40% in Spain. These are countries with substantial social-security systems. But those systems protect labor-market incumbents much more than new entrants. And the reforms that have been implemented, in order to ease entry into work, are not sufficient in the context of weak overall growth. Without deeper reform, the demographic arithmetic suggests that the disenfranchised and anti-establishment share of the population may grow (unless today’s young people change their stripes as they age). The question is whether this trend will lead to a genuine disruption of the status quo or merely to political polarization that weakens government effectiveness. The solution to European economies’ woes seems clear: a set of reforms that encourages more vigorous and much more inclusive growth patterns. After all, while globalization and technology lead to job displacement, sufficient growth can ensure that overall employment is sustained. To that end, reforms are needed at both the national and EU levels. While each EU country has its own specific features, some common reform imperatives stand out. In particular, all countries need to reduce structural rigidity, which deters investment and hampers growth. To boost flexibility, social-security systems have to be largely disconnected from specific jobs, companies, and sectors, and rebuilt around individuals and families, income, and human capital. The remainder of the domestic reform agenda is complex, but its goal is simple: enhance private-sector investment. Under this heading are items like regulatory reform, anti-corruption measures, and public-sector investment, especially in education and research. At the European level, the most important recent development is the weakening of the euro relative to most major currencies, especially the US dollar, since mid-2014. This has caused the eurozone to run a substantial surplus and helped to restore some competitiveness in the tradable sectors in France, Spain, and Italy. In all three countries, tourism is an important sector for employment and the balance of payments, and expenditures have been rising when measured in euros. Of course, the weaker euro has fueled large surpluses in Germany and northern Europe, where unit labor costs are lower, relative to productivity. In the longer term, convergence of unit labor costs is needed. But that will take time, especially in a low-inflation environment. In the meantime, the weak euro may help to spur growth. EU-level action is also needed on immigration, which has emerged as a major economic and political issue. Faced with inflows of huge numbers of refugees from the Middle East and Africa – inflows that exceed many countries’ absorptive capacity – the EU may need to modify the free movement of people for a period of time. After Germany, France is the most important country in the eurozone. If a Macron victory is treated as an opportunity to pursue aggressive reforms targeted at boosting growth and employment, the French election may amount to an important turning point for Europe. If, however, it is treated as a validation of the status quo, it will produce only a short reprieve for a besieged EU. This article originally appeared on project-syndicate.org. 

Iran’s May 19 election will pit Ibrahim Raisi, a hard-line protégé of the supreme leader, against the more centrist incumbent, Hassan Rouhani, in a contest that may hinge on the perceived economic impact of the nuclear deal.

French election results show Emmanuel Macron in first place with 23.9 percent of the vote and Marine Le Pen in second with 21.4 percent, setting the stage for a run-off election on May 7. Early polls show a comfortable edge for Macron, the pro-E.U. former economy minister who ran on a campaign of ambitious economic reform including labor market deregulation and lower corporate taxes (though there will be questions about where supporters of Jean-Luc Mélenchon will land, or whether they will vote at all). While the result was expected, markets had become quite jittery in recent days and, unsurprisingly, rallied as results came in. The euro this morning is 2 percent stronger, reaching a five-month high at 1.09 to the dollar, and gold as well as other safe-haven investments have sold off. Investors are clearly relieved with the result that put Macron into the second round. But political risk is likely to remain an endemic feature in European and global markets, and European policymakers face a full calendar of challenges over the course of the year without a compelling vision about how to address the populist pressures sweeping the region. What comes next? Of the electoral challenges facing Europe this year, the French Presidential elections were the focus of markets given the importance of the French economy and Marine Le Pen’s call for France to leave the euro. Even if she were to prevail in the runoff, polls suggest a referendum on “Frexit” would fail and that her party would fall well short in mid-June parliamentary elections of the super majority necessary for constitutional changes. Still, a Le Pen victory would have caused economic tremors throughout Europe and called the future of the euro into question. From this perspective, Macron’s strong showing, against the backdrop of EU flags at rallies and in line with the polls, is an important stabilizing result. Now, market attention will now focus on this fall’s German elections, as well as possible early elections in Italy and Greece. In these latter two cases, politics will be affected by the resolution of economic problems—banks in Italy and debt in Greece—that could tell us a lot about Europe’s capacity to come together and solve EU-wide problems in the current environment. At this week’s meetings of the IMF and World Bank, we heard contrasting visions of the future course of economic policy in Europe. I repeatedly heard from European economic policymakers—though I am not sure whether this is hope or real belief—that these elections open a window for greater economic reform and more integration. The idea, as I understand it, is that, should pro-European leaders be elected in France and Germany, the stage would be set later this year for a new compact between the two largest countries in the Eurozone to re-energize the process of monetary and financial union, and address aggressively other challenges facing Europe including security, migration and Brexit. The converse argument, which I find far more compelling, sees a European economy that will continue to be constrained by strong populist and nationalistic pressures. Those pressures, as many have written, have their origin in a long period of poor economic performance reflected in low growth, high unemployment, and unaddressed dislocations from technology and integration. My concern in this context is not only the rise of rejectionist candidates in elections, but also that populism increasingly constrains mainstream politicians, a challenge compounded by the Brexit vote and the difficult negotiations that lie ahead. Polls now show that security and immigration have become the disruptors providing the fuel for the recent rise in discontent with mainstream policies, policymakers and institutions. From this perspective, it is possible to see yesterday's vote, where more than 40 percent voted for Marine Le Pen or Jean-Luc Mélenchon, and representatives of the two leading parties finished third and fifth, as a strong repudiation of the status quo. Europe’s economic future remains uncertain, even in the midst of a modest cyclical recovery. The IMF projects growth in the euro area at 1.7 percent this year and 1.6 percent next year, (1.4 and 1.6 percent in France), which should allow for the continued slow reduction in still too-high unemployment rates. Mildly expansionary fiscal policy, easy financial conditions and a weak euro all support activity. But the IMF cautions that without further reform the “medium-term outlook for the euro area as a whole remains dim, as projected potential growth is held back by weak productivity, adverse demographics, and, in some countries, unresolved legacy problems of public and private debt overhang, with a high level of nonperforming loans.” I still believe that a durable cure for the winds buffeting Europe requires a better economic future—and in the current electoral environment it is extraordinarily difficult to convince voters across the region that greater European integration is the way to get there.

As part of a wide-ranging cabinet reshuffle, President Jacob Zuma has fired highly respected Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan and his deputy, Mcebisi Jonas, along with other long-time stalwarts of the ruling African National Congress (ANC). Gordhan and Jonas had long opposed pet projects of the president, and Gordhan has become the symbol of reform and good governance even as the reputation of the governing ANC under Zuma’s leadership has declined into a miasma of charges of corruption and “state capture” by the president’s cronies. Many South Africans (including those within the ANC) will see Gordhan’s departure as a major setback for “reform” and the struggle against corruption. International investors already are not happy. The Rand fell dramatically yet again against the U.S. dollar. There is now a greater likelihood that the international credit rating agencies will downgrade South Africa’s sovereign debt to junk status. The ANC was already divided over Zuma’s successor as party leader; the party leadership vote is expected to take place in December. Zuma and his faction’s preferred candidate is his ex-wife, Nkosanza Dlamini-Zuma; a “reform” faction candidate is the well-regarded deputy president, Cyril Ramaphosa, and there could be others. Looking toward December is part of the context of the cabinet reshuffle. Zuma apparently did not consult the traditional ANC party leadership over the reshuffle, an indication that it would have opposed him. It is still not clear whether Zuma has the support of his parliamentary partners, the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU); Gordhan has had considerable support among both. The South African opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) has now tabled a motion of no confidence in President Jacob Zuma in parliament. If it is successful, Zuma would immediately lose the presidency. Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) supports the motion. The other opposition parties will almost certainly support the motion. The parliamentary arithmetic is straightforward. Parliament has four hundred seats. A successful vote of no-confidence requires 201 votes. The ANC has 249 seats (COSATU and SACP MP’s vote as ANC). All of the opposition parties have 151. To oust Zuma a no-confidence motion would require the votes of about fifty ANC MP’s. Despite the outrage in the aftermath of the Zuma cabinet reshuffle even inside the ANC, it is unlikely that a DA motion of no confidence will succeed. In the past, when the DA has proposed such a motion, even when supported by the “radical” EFF, the ANC has closed ranks, protecting the party and ensuring Zuma’s position. Since the days of Nelson Mandela, the ANC has prioritized party unity. The DA continues to be perceived as the party of whites, other minorities, and the privileged in South Africa, while the ANC (despite its multiracial principles and history) is seen as “black,” “pro-poor,” and the leader of the successful fight against apartheid. (Black South African’s constitute about 80 percent of the country’s population, and most of it is poor.) The EFF is something of a wild card. Its “pro-poor” rhetoric goes beyond the ANC, but Malema’s personal hatred for Zuma is visceral and unabated. He is prepared to cooperate on occasion with the DA. Nevertheless, given the realities of racially based identity politics, a no-confidence vote will likely fail. Only if a significant portion of the ANC leadership concludes that keeping Zuma in the presidency is electoral poison might the no-confidence measure succeed. We may know soon; the party’s highest leadership body, the National Executive Committee may meet over the weekend of April 1-2. However, if such a meeting is postponed, or if it takes no significant action, Zuma’s short-term chances of weathering his current political crisis are improved.

Last week, India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) received a landslide victory in the state assembly elections of Uttar Pradesh (UP), India’s most populous state, and arguably one of the country’s most politically important arenas. The day after the election results, Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivered a celebratory speech at the party headquarters in New Delhi, and heralded the dawn of a “New India.” As I wrote last week, his New India remarks, along with a campaign unfurled to encourage citizen involvement, pointed to a focus on jobs, development, anti-corruption, “Clean India,” protecting nature, peace, unity, and goodwill, among other priorities. Modi has expended enormous political capital in domestic and foreign policy highlighting the urgency of India’s development, and during his nearly three years in government has initiated countless initiatives geared toward providing better sanitation and infrastructure for the whole country, encouraging more foreign direct investment, enticing manufacturers to set up in India, calling for “women-led development,” plumping for greater innovation, and positioning India as a new “leading power” on the world stage. These emphases can be summed up in his party’s national campaign slogan, sab ka saath, sab ka vikaas—everyone together, development for all. The BJP conducted their campaign in UP without naming a chief minister candidate for the state. Over the weekend, the chief minister was selected, and let’s just say his claim to fame to date has not been development. Instead, Yogi Adityanath, the new chief minister of UP, is a popular, five-time member of parliament who leads a Hindu religious order in Gorakhpur, in the eastern part of the state. Adityanath has attained fame in India due to his oratory, nearly always described as “fiery,” with him frequently described as a “firebrand” leader of Hindutva, or Hindu nationalism. I will refrain from enumerating some of the many speeches he has given over the years that illustrate his antipathy for Muslims. You can learn more about his public remarks here, and about the pending criminal charges against him here. The point is that he will now be responsible for overseeing the development of this critically important state, one with enormous problems and enormous needs, and one in which Hindu-Muslim tensions continue to be a concern. Indian parties do not choose their politicians with a view to what the world might conclude, but there is no denying the signal this pick sends: with a huge mandate, the BJP has decided to lead with the face of religious nationalism—not the forward-looking, twenty-first century face of the New India—in their most important state. Some Indian commentators have used the phrase “the mask has come off” or “bait and switch” to describe this abrupt shift from a development-focused platform. I hope this does not signal that UP will become enmeshed in religious conflict, unable to advance its development agenda. Adityanath supporters will say he deserves a chance to prove himself. He does, but his past inflammatory remarks—the reason for his national notoriety—are surely cause for concern. He has earned high marks for asking questions in parliament, and for his strong anti-corruption stance. As a member of parliament, his legislative focus has been on matters such as cow protection, renaming India as “Bharat,” calling for a uniform civil code, banning religious conversion, and adding a court bench in his city. After his swearing-in as UP’s new chief minister, he said he would work to eliminate goondaraaj, or thug rule, from the state, which has serious law and order problems, and that he would focus on development for all, as Modi has repeatedly emphasized. His first acts as chief minister have been to seek a declaration of assets from state government ministers, and to end the use of red lights on official government vehicles, a step toward ending what many describe as the “VVIP culture” of special privileges for those in office. The Modi government has two years left in office, and despite having initiated many development programs, has a long way to go to see them fulfilled. Let’s hope the new leader of India’s largest state adjusts his perspective and his public rhetoric to befit the new office he holds, one charged with the welfare of more than 200 million people, of which some nineteen percent are Muslim. All citizens of UP, no matter their religion, deserve a chief minister who will seek development for all, regardless of their background. Follow me on Twitter: @AyresAlyssa. Or like me on Facebook (fb.me/ayresalyssa) or Instagram (instagr.am/ayresalyssa).

What a weekend for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). On Saturday, March 11, the election results for five state legislative assembly contests came in, delivering the voters’ verdict. More than halfway through the Narendra Modi government’s term in office, and four months after a painful currency demonetization, voters delivered the BJP two resounding victories (Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand), two close calls that the party has converted into power (Goa and Manipur), and one defeat (Punjab). The victories extend the party’s reach across most of north India, and cement its position as the nation’s dominant political force. Veteran political journalist Shekhar Gupta wrote that “tectonic change” was a phrase “too mild for a power shift that resets not just the political geography of India, but also its sociology, psychology and ideological pathologies.” In the largest and most consequential state, Uttar Pradesh (UP)—a colossus of 200 million, larger than most countries in the world—the BJP was voted into power by a landslide: they received more than three-fourths of the assembly seats (312 of 403 seats). An election alliance between India’s Congress Party and the party controlling UP since 2012, the Samajwadi Party, proved a washout, as did the efforts of the Bahujan Samaj Party, a subordinate-caste-empowerment party that has previous held power in the state, and at one time held national ambitions. The BJP did not nominate a chief ministerial candidate to serve as the “hometown” front face for the election in UP. Instead, it was Modi’s show. The BJP’s overwhelming victory in India’s largest state affirms Modi as India’s most gifted politician of his era. Observers have already proclaimed that he has locked up another term when national elections take place in 2019. But the victory also, crucially, will slowly phase in a series of seat pickups beginning in 2018 in India’s upper house of parliament, since the upper house members are elected by each state’s legislative assembly. The BJP has not held a majority in the upper house and to date has struggled to pass some of the most contentious economic reform legislation it marched into government hoping to deliver. Over time the BJP can be expected to secure a majority there which will end its problems moving reforms requiring legislation. The Uttarakhand result, albeit in a much smaller state—indeed, one that was carved out of UP in a reorganization back in 2000—helped amplify the scale of the BJP’s growing national support. The state has around ten million people, so fewer seats to elect to the upper house of parliament. It will only be able to help with one seat in 2018. Still, winning both Uttarakhand and UP so significantly contributed to the sense that Modi’s support has not diminished in the Hindi heartland, no matter the loss in Bihar back in 2015. In the small states of Goa (population 1.8 million) and Manipur (2.7 million), the BJP did not attain an outright majority, but quickly managed to secure support from others (defectors from parties or supporters from smaller parties) to form the government in both. Neither state has the political throw weight of UP, but two more BJP-controlled governments, from the western coast to the high mountainous northeast, extends the BJP’s visual map across the breadth of India. Looking to a New India On Sunday, March 12, Prime Minister Modi spoke at a victory celebration at the BJP headquarters in New Delhi. Online, he used the occasion to debut a new campaign, complete with a hashtag (#IAmNewIndia) asking voters to pledge themselves in service of the vision of a “New India” by 2022 (India’s seventy-fifth year of independence). The campaign’s list of causes map precisely onto the social issues Modi has championed, such as anti-corruption, a cashless economy, “Clean India,” drug-free India, women-led development, protecting nature, “Accessible India,” and peace, unity, and goodwill. While the #IAmNewIndia campaign was surely in the works regardless of the state elections outcome, Modi’s victory speech [Hindi; 35 minutes] at the BJP headquarters used the celebratory occasion to amplify the “New India” message. I was struck by the language he used throughout the speech. He thanked BJP workers and the country for the election results, but then shifted quickly to discuss the vision of the New India unfolding. This New India is the dream of India’s “youth power,” a New India that “fulfills the aspirations” of “women power.” Unlike the rhetoric of other parties, which often recite a litany of welfare sops to show their utility to voters (here is an official video from one party showcasing the fans and food mixers it handed out to voters), Modi’s speech instead contained a passage about the New India representing a change in mentality. He said that if earlier the poor asked for something to be given to them, today they ask for the opportunity to do work themselves. The interrelated themes of development and jobs have been central to Modi’s political language, and appear likely to become even more amplified through the New India campaign. Modi’s campaigns will need to start delivering jobs soon, however. His government’s big foreign economic policy initiative, the Make in India campaign to encourage foreign direct investment and manufacturing in India, has reeled in the pledges, but the payrolls do not yet reflect job creation. India’s demographics require the creation of one million jobs per month to absorb new labor force entrants. According to the most recently available statistics, however, in 2015 only 135,000 new jobs were created in the organized/formal sector of the economy. Jobs will preoccupy the Indian government for the foreseeable future; to date voters have been willing to give the BJP a chance to deliver. Does the “New India” tagline tell us anything about where India might be headed on the world stage? Modi’s Sunday speech didn’t explicitly address foreign policy. But I’d bet that the Indian government, now reassured of its strength for the remainder of its term and with wind in its sails looking at 2019, will press harder on the economic reforms it has struggled to enact, such as with land acquisition and labor law reforms. Both will help increase the country’s economic growth and job creation prospects. I’d also bet that the New India will press forward internationally to secure a larger place for India in the world. Indian leaders—and this is not a new preoccupation, but one that has accelerated with Modi—seek recognition for the country as one among the world’s great powers. The New India wants the world to acknowledge its ascent and indeed its transformation, and find an appropriate reform process to ensure it a voice commensurate with its size and accomplishments. That means on the UN Security Council, the remaining nonproliferation regimes it seeks to join, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and others. Look for continued, perhaps even expanded, international diplomacy on this front as the confident New India ups its game. Follow me on Twitter: @AyresAlyssa. Or like me on Facebook (fb.me/ayresalyssa) or Instagram (instagr.am/ayresalyssa).

South Korea’s Constitutional Court unanimously upheld the National Assembly’s impeachment of Park Geun-hye today, paving the way for new elections to be held within 60 days of the ruling. May 9 has been reported as the most likely date for the election of a new president, who will replace President Park and serve a five-year term. Park announced that she would immediately move out of the Blue House to her private residence in Gangnam. And with her removal from office, Park will almost certainly face a criminal trial now that she no longer enjoys immunity from prosecution. South Korea’s Presidential Scandal: What Happened?   The decision paves the way for an early resolution of a leadership vacuum that has engulfed South Korea for months. Acting President Hwang Kyo-Ahn has made decisions in a caretaker role, but with no political mandate to take new initiatives. A compressed presidential campaign and early election would be the quickest way to return to political normalcy within South Korea, but only following intensified polarization of differences between conservative and progressive factions resulting from the impeachment ruling. Polarized factions on both sides Most notably, the Park’s impeachment has taken its toll on South Korean conservatives, who are weakened and divided following a party split over whether to impeach Park. Conservative legislators who supported the National Assembly motion for Park’s impeachment left the ruling Saenuri Party to start the Barun (Righteous Party), while pro-Park stalwarts changed the Saenuri Party name to the Korea Freedom Party and appointed an interim party leadership. There were hopes that former UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon would mobilize a unity candidacy, but they quickly evaporated in early February. As public support for conservatives has waned, Democratic Party support rates among the Korean public have surged to the high 40% range, with former Roh Moo-hyun chief of staff and 2012 Democratic Party presidential candidate Moon Jae-in emerging as the current frontrunner with a 30-35% support rate. A four-person Democratic Party primary also features South Chungcheong Province Governor An Hee-jung and Seongnam City Mayor Lee Jae-myung, both of whom have broken into double digits in recent Korean presidential polls. Current levels of support for these three presidential candidates suggest that the winner of the Democratic Party primary will be heavily favored to win the presidency. But as the public focus shifts from Park’s impeachment to the presidential campaign, Moon Jae-in’s candidacy will face greater scrutiny, especially from older Korean conservatives who are distrustful of his progressive politics. Thus, the major question likely to shape the campaign is whether any presidential hopeful can unify and mobilize the Korean public in an effort to stop Moon’s candidacy. People’s Party leader Ahn Chulsoo, who unsuccessfully challenged Moon for the Democratic Party leadership in 2012, remains hopeful that he can emerge as that candidate (despite languishing 8-10% public support ratings) if he can garner conservative support. With no viable conservative option, Ahn might have a chance to emerge as a viable challenger to Moon. Questions for a progressive South Korean presidency A progressive South Korean presidency would raise a number of questions about the future direction of the country’s foreign policy. While all the major presidential candidates will run on platforms that emphasize a strong alliance relationship with the United States, progressives want to reopen dialogue and possible economic relations with North Korea and hope to take the edge of China’s rise by promoting regional cooperation as a counter to rising regional rivalries. On the domestic end of things, they will want to address income inequality and are more likely to confront chaebol privilege. A major challenge for South Korea’s next president will be the task of managing an effective political transition. A tough transition The extraordinary circumstances surrounding this election will mean that the president will be sworn in the day after being elected, but it will likely take weeks to nominate a cabinet and hold hearings before a National Assembly in which no party controls a parliamentary majority. Thus, a new president will initially lead a government in composed of either a cabinet he did not choose or acting ministers that hold interim leadership while a new cabinet is selected. While most administrations struggle to organize themselves following a two-month transition period, South Korea’s next leader must be prepared to go from zero to sixty in only a day. Then, the hard work of rebuilding trust in the country’s leadership begins. A version of this post originally appeared on Forbes.

Two months following the passage by the ROK National Assembly of a motion of impeachment against Park Geun-hye, power remains in the hands of Acting President Hwang Kyo-ahn, South Korean conservatives are split between the pro-Park New Liberty Korea Party and the newly-established anti-Park Bareun (Righteous) Party, and a series of investigations has expanded the dimensions of South Korea’s political scandal and threatened to ensnare top Korean corporate leaders.1 South Korea’s most experienced leader in international affairs, former UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, ended his flirtation with presidential politics by concluding that he should remain out of the race, seemingly turning a looming presidential election into a fight among progressives.2 Hwang has succeeded, thus far, in fulfilling his caretaker role, insofar as he has kept current policies in place and maintained government momentum despite the looming threat of politicization and reversal of Park Geun-hye’s major foreign policy decisions. But while South Korea stands still and awaits new political leadership, regional tensions are increasing and potential cleavages in the Northeast Asian security environment are becoming more apparent. True, the crisis has been a test of the impressive responsiveness of South Korean democratic institutions to public demands for transparent and clean government, but this display comes against the backdrop of a global turn toward nationalism and backlash against globalization. Both of these trends pose serious risks for a vulnerable and trade-dependent South Korea’s economic well-being and national security. South Korea runs the risk of repeating the historical precedent of allowing factionalism in domestic politics to paralyze an effective political response to rising external geopolitical risks and dangers. South Korea’s transitional government, its ongoing political vacuum, and its looming domestic power transition are affecting South Korean geopolitical risks in the following ways. Efforts to Influence the Transition to a Trump Administration North Korea’s resumption of missile tests on February 12, 2017, with a test of a solid-fueled land-based ballistic missile following a four-month hiatus, has renewed pressure on the Trump administration to prioritize a counterstrategy to defeat North Korea’s development capabilities to threaten the United States and its allies.3 Following tweets in early January asserting that North Korea achieving the ability to hit most parts of the United States “won’t happen” and holding China responsible for reigning in North Korea, the Trump administration has ordered a North Korea policy review, sent Defense Secretary James Mattis on a reassurance tour to South Korea and Japan in late January, and had Trump himself pledge to “stand behind” Japanese allies in a joint press conference with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held in response to North Korea’s missile launch.4 Otherwise, the Trump administration has held its rhetorical fire, presumably pending the administration’s review of policy toward North Korea and development of a coherent strategy for responding to the North. The fact that North Korea’s first missile test under the Trump administration occurred while Trump and Abe were having dinner together in Florida, provided an opportunity for Trump to emphasize the importance of a coordinated response among allies. However, his failure to acknowledge that the missile test was an important alliance coordination issue between the United States and South Korea can be attributed, to some degree, to South Korea’s political vacuum. In contrast to Abe’s flurry of diplomatic activity, including four visits to the United States within the past half year, South Korea’s political leadership has remained in the penalty box pending the final judgment of the Constitutional Court over whether to uphold the validity of the National Assembly’s impeachment of Park.5 Even the visit of National Security Advisor Kim Kwan-jin, to the United States has been a subject of debate within South Korean politics. Since his office is physically located at the Blue House complex, some viewed his visit for early talks with the Trump administration during the transition period to be a violation of the National Assembly’s impeachment motion, with a Minjoo party member noting that his act was “definitely an act exceeding an authority.”6 Given that the Trump administration was still in its transition phase, it was inevitable that the only people in place to represent it were at the National Security Council. Sending Kim, who represents the South Korean counterpart of the US National Security Council, was a bow to the reality of the Trump transition and an effort to maintain coordination between governments as closely as possible despite the vacuum in Seoul and the transition in Washington. Political Relations With Near Neighbors A second cost of South Korea’s political vacuum has come in the form of a broken relationship between South Korea and Japan. This development has occurred because South Korea’s political vacuum made it possible for South Korean NGOs to challenge the December 2015 “comfort woman” agreement by placing a statue outside the Japanese consulate in Busan (in addition to the one outside the embassy in Seoul that Park had pledged to try to remove in that deal) at a time when there is no politically empowered central government leader able to assert national prerogatives as a priority over local sentiments. Instead, the local authorities initially removed the statue, but then relented and replaced it in response to public sentiment.7 In response, the government of Japan recalled its ambassador to Tokyo.8 Meanwhile, Japanese government ministers including the minister of defense paid their respects personally at the Yasukuni Shrine.9 A major unspoken premise underlying the “comfort woman” agreement has been challenged by these developments: that both South Korea and Japan would need to bring domestic political forces under control in order to preserve a normal relationship between the two governments—a task that is easier said than done in a democratic political system. There is no prospect that the issue can be successfully resolved in the midst of an impending presidential campaign, i.e., it will be difficult to resolve the current tensions until South Korea chooses its president, who will have to figure out how to repair the relationship with Japan as one of his early presidential tasks. At the same time, China’s challenge to South Korea’s domestic politics continues to grow through its economic retaliation to South Korea’s agreement to deploy THAAD on South Korean territory. China has quietly imposed non-tariff barriers on pop culture and cosmetics from South Korea, subjected businesses affiliated with the Lotte Group to intense audits in retaliation against Lotte’s decision to sell a golf course to the ROK government in connection with the THAAD deployment, and reduced the flow of Chinese tourists to South Korea.10 In addition, China has privately sent envoys to warn South Korea of the consequences of its decision while publicly hosting opposition national assemblymen who saw opportunities for a photo op with China’s foreign minister.11 However, despite continued criticism of the Park administration for a lack of transparency in the announcement of the THAAD deployment, Chinese political pressure seems more likely to push South Korea’s political leaders toward acceptance of the deployment. Impact on South Korea’s Economic Growth Park’s scandal removed the momentum for the South Korean government to secure a raft of reforms to structures that are widely perceived as obstacles to South Korean economic growth. For instance, high-levels of youth unemployment and high rates of temporary labor are directly connected to a rigid labor market, which protects permanent workers regardless of their productivity or contributions.12 The momentum for these sorts of structural reforms has completely dissipated as the National Assembly focuses solely on investigations of scandals and short-term political maneuvering in anticipation of the next presidential election. Park’s “creative economy” initiatives, which emphasized establishment of innovation hubs and promoted creation of new start-ups as a means to generate new jobs and strengthen South Korean competitiveness, are surely thwarted by the overall political malaise that has struck South Korea.13 Moreover, the main remaining sources of growth in exports, exceptionally important for growth in the South Korean economy, are tied to international competitiveness and are dominated by the chaebol. But the heads of the largest chaebol have been entrapped in Park’s scandal. Almost every large conglomerate has been entrapped by Choi Soon-sil’s rent-seeking, either through direct extortion related to fundraising for her sports foundations or as part of efforts to shake down companies by locking in exclusive PR contracts. Samsung CEO Lee Jae-yong has been detained. Samsung and other major chaebol have pulled out of the Federation of Korean Industries and political arousal over income inequality is likely to produce a president with a mandate to challenge chaebol privilege within South Korean society in one form or another, raising uncertainty about economic policies under the next administration.14 Response to North Korean Crisis Hwang Kyo-ahn has spent a good deal of time organizing responses to North Korean developments, including the resumption of missile testing and the assassination of Kim Jong-nam. Fortunately, there has not yet been a North Korean provocation that would require a real political decision from the caretaker leader. Given that South Korea’s political vacuum provides a windfall to the North, Pyongyang has shown reluctance to do much that would distract from South Korea’s political malaise. However, a North Korean provocation against the South would also provide the gravest and most difficult challenge to an acting South Korean leadership with no political mandate to respond. Perhaps, the wide degree of uncertainty regarding possible South Korean responses is actually the surest deterrent against North Korea’s usual propensity for risk-taking, given the evident vulnerabilities and paranoia surrounding Kim Jong-un’s own efforts to consolidate his power. Although North Korean intervention at a time of South Korean vulnerability might be tempting, Pyongyang’s efforts to influence South Korean politics have repeatedly proven to be counterproductive. It would be better for Pyongyang to assess the situation after it sorts itself out and then determines a course of action. Conclusion The costs and consequences of South Korea’s political vacuum have mounted as the crisis has ballooned and South Korea has continued on autopilot without a clear sense of political direction. Only a new mandate from the South Korean people and the energy of a new administration empowered to implement the political will of the people will enable South Korea to overcome its current problems. The longer the situation is prolonged, the greater the costs of inaction, and the harder it will be for a new leadership to regain lost momentum resulting from South Korea’s current political drift. This post originally appeared on Asan Forum.

Today is Presidents’ Day. It is a TWE tradition to recognize the forty-four men—and they have all been men—who have been president on Presidents’ Day with the following essay. If you are lucky enough to have today off, enjoy: American kids often say they want to be president when they grow up. You have to wonder why. A few presidents have loved the job. Teddy Roosevelt said “No president has ever enjoyed himself as much as I have enjoyed myself.” Donald Trump is just four weeks into his presidency but says, “I’m having a good time.” Most presidents, though, found the job demanding, perhaps too demanding. James K. Polk pretty much worked himself to exhaustion. Zachary Taylor, the hero of the Mexican-American War, found being president harder than leading men into battle. Dwight Eisenhower had a heart attack from the stress of leading the Free World. Many presidents express relief once they can be called “former president.” This trend started early. John Adams told his wife Abigail that George Washington looked too happy watching him take the oath of office. “Me–thought I heard him say, ‘Ay, I am fairly out and you fairly in! See which of us will be happiest!” Andrew Johnson, who was impeached by the House but acquitted by the Senate, returned to Capitol Hill six years after leaving the White House as senator from Tennessee. When an acquaintance mentioned that his new accommodations were smaller than his old ones at the White House, he replied: “But they are more comfortable.” Rutherford B. Hayes longed to escape what he called a “life of bondage, responsibility, and toil.” The only part of the job that Chester Arthur liked was giving parties. He apparently did that quite well. His nickname was the “prince of hospitality.” Grover Cleveland claimed there was “no happier man in the United States” when he lost his reelection bid in 1888. Time away from the White House apparently changed his mind. He ran again in 1892 and won, making him the only president to hold two non-consecutive terms. Donald Trump, like many modern presidents, blames the media for making his job harder than it should be. But the complaint is as old as the Republic. Thomas Jefferson suggested that newspaper editors should divide their papers “into four chapters, heading the 1st, Truths. 2d, Probabilities. 3d, Possibilities. 4th, Lies.” The Inaugural Address Any elected president’s first official act is to deliver an inaugural address. The expectations and stakes are high. So high in fact that many presidents-elect channel their inner undergraduate and labor late into the night wordsmithing. James Garfield didn’t finish his speech until 2:30 a.m. on Inauguration Day. Bill Clinton did him two hours better, fiddling with his speech until 4:30 a.m. Some presidents rise to the occasion on Inaugural Day with soaring rhetoric that rings through the ages. Franklin Delano Roosevelt gave us: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” John F. Kennedy gave us: “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” Alas, most inaugural addresses are forgettable. James Buchanan used his to complain that the country was so consumed in debating slavery that it was ignoring other, more important issues. That address tells us a lot about why Buchanan tops virtually every list of the worst presidents in American history. Ulysses S. Grant, a far better general than a president, used his inaugural address to complain that his critics were treating him unfairly. Most presidents share this sentiment, but they find better venues to share it. Richard Nixon gave us the memorable line: “The American dream does not come to those who fall asleep.” Uh, okay. Some presidents get right to the point in their inaugural address. George Washington’s second inaugural address totaled only 135 words—or about the length of two recitations of the Lord’s Prayer. William Henry Harrison, the hero of the Battle of Tippecanoe, went to the other extreme. He took nearly two hours to deliver an 8,000-word speech. It was a bitterly cold day, but the 68-year-old Harrison spoke without a coat or hat. He caught a cold, which turned into pneumonia, and he died a month later. That made him the first president to die in office. (It also made John Tyler the first vice president to finish out a president’s term.) Harrison holds two other distinctions. First, he was the last American president born as an English subject. Second, he was the first, and so far only president, to have his grandson become president. Benjamin Harrison, please take a bow. When George Washington first took the oath of office in New York City on April 30, 1789, only people within the sound of his voice could hear what he had to say. Every president afterwards until Woodrow Wilson also spoke without the benefit of amplification. Which prompts the question: Did the people who spent two hours listening to William Henry Harrison drone on in the bitter cold actually hear him? Warren Harding was the first president to deliver his inaugural address into a microphone. Calvin Coolidge was the first president to deliver his inaugural address over the radio. Harry Truman was the first to deliver his on television. Bill Clinton was the first to do so over the internet. Any president today who took the oath of office without laying his hand on a Bible would become an instantaneous political pariah. But apparently that was not always the case. Franklin Pierce declined to use a Bible during his swearing in. Barack Obama used Abraham Lincoln’s bible. Changes in technology have been matched by changes in fashion. Today we take it for granted that the president will wear a suitcoat with matching pants. However, the first five presidents—George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe—all wore knee britches. John Quincy Adams was the first to wear long pants, so we can consider him a fashionista of a sort. Tradition today calls for a bunch of gala balls on the evening of Inauguration Day. Presidents go from Washington hotel to Washington hotel, dancing briefly and inspiring their supporters. In the good old days, however, festivities were more intimate and boisterous. Andrew Jackson threw a party for his well-wishers at the White House. Things got out of hand, however, in an Animal House kind of way. The White House was saved only when presidential servants carried tubs of ice cream and liquor onto the lawn to lure people out of the mansion. Landing on Mount Rushmore All presidents on Inauguration Day imagine that their presidency will be a great one. In the mind of the American public, Ronald Reagan topped the last survey of best presidents, followed by Abraham Lincoln, Bill Clinton, John F. Kennedy, and George Washington. Professional historians and political scientists scoff at the public’s ranking because it is so obviously biased in favor of recent presidents. The professionals instead typically name George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and FDR as the three best presidents. Alas, far too many presidents fail to impress either the public or the professionals. The saddest case may be Millard Fillmore. He couldn’t impress even his own father, who said that he belonged at home in Buffalo and not in Washington. The poster child for presidential failure, however, is Herbert Hoover. He was a golden boy before becoming president. Born in West Branch, Iowa to humble origins, he was orphaned at a young age. He eventually became a member of the first class to enter Stanford University, where among other accomplishments he badgered former president Benjamin Harrison to pay the twenty-five cents he owed for admission to a Stanford baseball game. He graduated with a degree in geology, became a mining engineer, lived in Australia and China (where he learned Mandarin Chinese), survived the Boxer Rebellion, and became a wealthy man. During World War I, he entered public service and distinguished himself with his management of the European relief effort after the war ended. A young FDR marveled that Hoover “is certainly a wonder, and I wish we could make him President of the United States. There couldn’t be a better one.” The irony of that statement, of course, is that FDR ended up running against and defeating Hoover. FDR won because Hoover presided over the worst economic collapse in American history. The Great Depression may not have been Hoover’s fault, but he got the blame. So what does it take for a president to succeed? One key is to be attuned to public opinion. It is perhaps wise, though, not to be as attuned to public opinion as William McKinley, of whom it was said that he kept his ear so close to the ground that it was full of grasshoppers. A president also needs to know how to work with Congress. That was one skill that escaped Jimmy Carter, even though his fellow Democrats controlled both the House and Senate. “Carter,” said one member of Congress, “couldn’t get the Pledge of Allegiance through Congress.” To succeed, a president needs to know when to compromise. The example to follow here isn’t Woodrow Wilson. He once said, “I am sorry for those who disagree with me, because I know they are wrong.” Wilson’s reluctance to compromise led to the demise of his great project, the Treaty of Versailles. Successful presidents must know how to say one thing and do another. Republicans today hail Ronald Reagan as a tax-cutting, deficit-busting, champion of smaller government. His actual record was different. He signed eleven tax increases into law, saw the national debt more than double on his watch, and left America with a larger federal workforce than the one he inherited from Jimmy Carter. But what people remember him doing matters more than what he actually did. Presidents must also know how to deal with temperamental Cabinet secretaries. Few have faced a harder time than James Monroe. He once had to use a pair of fireplace tongs to fend off his cane-wielding secretary of the Treasury. Monroe also used his sword once to break up a fight at a White House dinner between visiting French and British ambassadors. All presidents must be prepared to hit some bumps along the road. As a political science professor once told me, the people love you on the way in, they love you on the way out, and they grumble in between. The difference between the highs and lows can be breathtaking, as President George W. Bush discovered. He set the record for both the highest public approval ratings and the lowest. The Men Who Held the Office With public popularity a fleeting thing, Harry Truman may have gotten it right when he laid down the cardinal rule of Washington political life: If you want a friend, get a dog. Most presidents have lived by Truman’s maxim. At least half them had dogs. Their dogs’ names included Sweetlips (Washington), Satan (John Adams), Fido (Lincoln), Grim (Hayes), Veto (Garfield), Stubby (Wilson), Oh Boy (Harding), Fala (FDR), and J. Edgar (LBJ). Some presidents dared to be different when it came to companion animals. Andrew Jackson had a parrot named Pol that he taught to swear. Martin Van Buren briefly had two tiger cubs. Benjamin Harrison had opossums named Mr. Reciprocity and Mr. Protection. McKinley had a parrot named Washington Post. Theodore Roosevelt had his own menagerie, including a garter snake named Emily Spinach, a rat named Jonathan, a macaw named Eli Yale, and a badger named Josiah. Calvin Coolidge apparently wanted to start his own zoo. His pets included a donkey, a black bear, a pygmy hippo, a wallaby, lion cubs, an antelope, raccoons, and a bobcat. Everyone knows that John F. Kennedy was the first (and so far only) Roman Catholic president and that Barack Obama is the first African American president. But neither is our tallest president. Abraham Lincoln holds that distinction at 6’ 4”, with Lyndon Baines Johnson just a half inch behind. If you want to win a bet, ask a Republican friend: Who was taller, Ronald Reagan or George H.W. Bush? No, it wasn’t the Gipper. A fair share of our presidents would have strained their necks looking up at Abraham Lincoln. James Madison, the father of the Constitution, is our shortest president. He was 5’ 4”. Martin Van Buren and Benjamin Harrison stand just behind him (above him?) at 5’ 6.” James K. Polk was called “the Napoleon of the stump” and “a short man with a long program.” Barack Obama was among our thinnest presidents. The distinction for the heaviest president goes to William Howard Taft, who weighed between 300 and 350 pounds. He was so heavy that the White House had to install a special bathtub to accommodate his girth. Taft was also the last president to sport facial hair, in his case a handlebar mustache. Being a former president seems to have done wonders for Taft; he lost 80 pounds the year after he left the White House. The weight loss undoubtedly prolonged Taft’s life. It also allowed him to enjoy his favorite job—Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. He remains the only person ever to have been both president and a Supreme Court justice. That means he both took the oath of office as president and administered it to a president, in his case to Calvin Coolidge. TWE’s Favorite Readers who have read this essay closely know that I have mentioned every president but one: Gerald Ford. That’s because he, unlike the other forty-three men to be presidents, was elected neither president nor vice president. He was, however, the only president wise enough to attend the University of Michigan, which makes him TWE’s official favorite president. Hail to the Victors! A bibliographic note. Many of the stories in this post come from Paul F. Boller Jr.’s wonderful book, Presidential Anecdotes. It is a great read. His other equally engaging books include: Presidential Campaigns: From George Washington to George W. Bush and Congressional Anecdotes. I highly recommend all three books.

Monday is Presidents’ Day. To get you in the proper celebratory mood, TWE presents its sixth annual Presidents’ Day quiz. If you are feeling up to it, you can try the quizzes from 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016 as well.       (function() { var qs,js,q,s,d=document, gi=d.getElementById, ce=d.createElement, gt=d.getElementsByTagName, id="typef_orm", b="https://embed.typeform.com/"; if(!gi.call(d,id)) { js=ce.call(d,"script"); js.id=id; js.src=b+"embed.js"; q=gt.call(d,"script")[0]; q.parentNode.insertBefore(js,q) } })() powered by Typeform     All presidential portraits are from the White House. All other photos are from the Library of Congress and Reuters. Click here to learn more. Note: If the quiz is not displaying in your browser, please click here.