As South Koreans go to the polls, Erik Mobrand, an associate professor at Seoul National University, tells TaiwanPlus that stability will follow from the election after the impeachment of former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol.
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00:00So Eric, to begin with, who are the leading presidential candidates for the elections
00:04in South Korea and what's at stake with these elections?
00:08We have from the Democratic Party, which controls the National Assembly, Lee Jae Myung, who
00:15was the presidential candidate three years ago and just narrowly lost that election to
00:24now former president, Yoon, who had made the martial law declaration.
00:30And he is going up against the candidate from Yoon's party, Kim Moon-soo, who is unapologetic
00:40about the martial law attempt, rather surprisingly.
00:45So he is the main rival.
00:46He is also an interesting long-term political figure who cut his teeth actually in student
00:53activism back in the 1970s and 1980s and was a figure opposing dictatorship.
01:00He was a very hardcore activist, in fact, and later switched and became a staunchly anti-communist
01:11conservative.
01:12Eric, do you think these elections will bring stability to South Korean politics after the
01:17turmoil brought by former president Yoon's declaration of martial law last year?
01:22I think we have a return to something like normalcy coming after this.
01:27The martial law declaration, which was very much an auto coup.
01:33It was an attempt to overthrow the existing order.
01:37This came out of nowhere.
01:39This was unanticipated.
01:42It brought moments of serious concern.
01:44I would say it's the most serious threat to the country's democracy in the past 35 years.
01:50However, we had a quick response first in the National Assembly and then on the streets.
01:58Universally, the martial law declaration was condemned.
02:02But that issue was resolved.
02:04And here we are, you know, exactly six months on with an election that will most likely draw a line under that event.
02:13Now, politics in Korea, as in Taiwan, is lively.
02:20We should not expect there not to be vitriol and drama in the coming months, but that should not mislead us into thinking that there is some sort of instability.
02:33In this election, much less has been said about foreign relations and about where Korea positions itself between the United States and China or on questions of the Taiwan Strait.
02:53So we do not hear a huge amount about foreign policy or even about North Korea policy in the way that the candidates in this election have campaigned.
03:07South Korea is in a very difficult position with its close security ally, the United States on the one hand, and an investment trade and supply chain partner in China on the other.
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