The Korean campaign reaches its final stretch

The presidential campaign in Seoul entered its final weeks in mid-May, with the polls showing a race that the winter had not predicted: the opposition’s candidate leading, the ruling party’s candidate closing, and the undecided voters, the fifth or so of the electorate that the surveys still cannot place, holding the balance that the June election will settle. The campaign has been conducted in the shadow of the martial-law night, and the shadow has shaped every issue that the candidates have addressed, the economy, the security, the judgement of the removal itself; the election on the first days of June will be the country’s answer to the winter’s question, and the answer, by the evidence of the polls, is still being written.

The candidates and their campaigns, as the final stretch opened, had settled into the shapes that the spring had made. The opposition’s candidate, the former minister who has led the polls since the verdict, has run on the restoration of the normal politics, the management of the economy through the trade conflict, and the promise of the unity that the crisis has made urgent; the ruling party’s candidate, the one who has sought to distance the campaign from the removed president, has run on the defence of the party’s record and the appeal to the voters who have judged the removal less harshly; the two campaigns have spent the spring’s weeks trading the attacks and the counter-attacks that the short race demands, and the trading has moved the polls by the points that the race’s margin will decide.

The issues that the candidates have addressed are the ones that the year has made unavoidable, and the weighing has been conducted with the particular care that the short campaign requires. The economy leads the agenda, with the export model that the trade conflict is testing and the candidates offering the competing programmes for the adjustment and the innovation; the security follows, with the northern neighbour and the alliances providing the questions that the candidates must answer; and the martial-law night provides the background, the reference point that the campaigns invoke and the voters weigh. The issues are the year’s issues, and the year’s issues are the ones that the winter’s crisis has made visible; the candidates’ answers to the issues will be the material that the undecided voters use to decide.

The dynamics of the final weeks will be the dynamics that the short campaigns always produce: the acceleration of the events, the debates and the televised encounters providing the moments that can move the polls, the gaffes and the attacks providing the headlines that the campaigns cannot control. The debates, scheduled for the final fortnight, will be the highest-stakes encounters of the race, with the candidates’ performances weighed against the expectations that the polls have set; the rallies and the appearances will fill the remaining calendar, and the coverage will be conducted in the full presence of the winter’s memory, which the campaigns cannot escape and the voters cannot forget.

The election on the first days of June will close the chapter that the martial-law night opened, and the closing will be conducted, whichever way the vote goes, in the presence of the questions that the chapter raised. The candidate who wins will govern the country through the trade conflict and the security questions, with the mandate that the election’s margin will measure; the candidate who loses will lead the opposition through the term that follows, with the argument about the winter continuing in the politics that the election will not conclude. The campaign has reached its final stretch, and the stretch will be run through the debates, the rallies and the polls of the final weeks, with the country’s answer to the winter’s question delivered on the first days of June.