Korea votes and the country turns the page

The Korean election delivered, on the first days of June, the result that the polls had indicated, with the opposition’s candidate elected president by the margin that the surveys had measured and the country closing the chapter that the martial-law night had opened. The vote was conducted through the longest day that the country’s democracy has staged, the queues at the polling stations, the record participation that the campaigns had urged, and the count that the evening’s coverage carried into the night; the outcome, confirmed by the official tallies in the days after, gave the country the new leadership that the spring’s campaign had promised. The transition that follows will be the test of the country’s institutions, and the test will be conducted in the full presence of the winter’s memory.

The result’s shape was the part that the psephologists will be analysing for weeks. The elected president carried the industrial heartlands and the cities that the opposition has held, the defeated candidate carried the regions that the ruling party’s support has concentrated in, and the margin, delivered by the turnout that the campaigns had mobilised, was the mandate that the new president will claim; the electoral map, read against the winter’s events, showed the country’s judgement on the night, the removal and the politics that followed. The result was the answer that the country had been preparing since the verdict, and the answer’s terms were the ones that the spring’s campaign had set.

The new president’s mandate is the part of the story that the transition will now test. The campaign’s promises, the restoration of the normal politics, the management of the economy through the trade conflict, the unity that the crisis has made urgent, are now the programme that the new government will have to deliver, and the delivery will be conducted through the institutions that the winter tested and the election confirmed; the parliament’s composition, the coalitions that the new president will have to build, and the opposition’s strength, all of it will shape the delivery, and the shaping will be the work of the term’s first months. The mandate is the beginning, and the beginning is the part that the country’s politics will now conduct.

The transition’s international dimension is the part that the neighbours and the allies have been watching since the result. The new president’s campaign carried the commitments that the region’s politics require, the alliance with the largest security partner, the management of the northern neighbour, the economic relationships that the country’s model depends on; the transition will be the test of the commitments, and the test will be conducted in the summits and the calls that the new government’s first weeks will schedule. The region’s stability has been the backdrop of the country’s crisis, and the backdrop will now be managed by the government that the election has produced.

The chapter that the election closed will be followed by the chapter that the new government will open, and the opening will be conducted in the presence of the winter’s memory. The martial-law night, the impeachment, the removal, the verdict, all of it is now the country’s recent history, and the history will be processed by the country’s politics through the term; the new president will govern with the mandate that the election provided and the memory that the winter left, and the governance will be the country’s answer to the question that the night raised. Korea voted, the country turned the page, and the turning was the act that the winter’s institutions had made possible; the page that has been turned is the page of the crisis, and the page that follows is the one that the new government, the new parliament and the new politics will now have to write.