Real Estate By-elections to the End

[경향신문]

Park Young-sun and Oh Se-hoon Go to Church on Easter, “Service at a Distance”: On April 4, three days before the Seoul mayoral by-election on April 7, Democratic Party of Korea candidate Park Young-sun (right) and People Power Party candidate Oh Se-hoon (left) sit and wait for a joint Easter service of the South Korean churches with People Power Party lawmaker Yun Hee-suk (Seocho district 1) sitting between them at Sarang Church in Seocho-gu, Seoul. National Assembly press photographers

The Seoul and Busan mayoral by-elections on April 7 have been entangled in the real estate issue. Real estate has pushed back every other issue leaving no room to discuss labor, welfare, and care services. In the past month, the ruling party poured out measures to cool the public anger ignited by real estate, while the opposition party was busy linking the public rage to judgment on the incumbent government. Even the negative campaigning by the candidates of the two major political parties focused on real estate. Experts argued that the real estate issue, fueled by the speculation scandal at the Korea Land and Housing Corporation (LH), was only the trigger, which simply brought the public’s accumulated and betrayed desire for fairness and justice to the surface. Who will the public link to the symbolic values of fairness and justice? This is likely to be a key agenda, not only in the upcoming by-elections, but in next year’s presidential election as well.

The upcoming by-elections appear to be dominated by real estate from start to finish.

After the speculation allegations were raised against LH employees on March 2, the Democratic Party of Korea promoted a string of real estate legislation. They formed a joint special investigation headquarters to investigate the speculation by LH, passed three bills concerning the public housing corporation, and promoted legislation for the retroactive forfeiture of profits from speculation. The ruling party also suggested easing loan regulations. Park Young-sun, the Democratic Party’s Seoul mayoral candidate distanced herself from the Moon Jae-in government policies and proposed to restrict the increase of publicly announced prices of housing valued at 900 million won or less to within 10%. Lee Nak-yeon, chair of the Democratic Party’s election campaign released a “letter of apology” concerning real estate.

The People Power Party constantly attacked the real estate issue. The opposition party emphasized that they would swiftly allow redevelopment to take place and provoked the public’s desire for real estate development. Oh Se-hoon, the People Power Party’s candidate for Seoul mayor asked, “Is a person who owns a house in Gangnam a criminal in this country?” and criticized the ruling party’s real estate policies and said, “When I enter office, I will ease redevelopment and reconstruction regulations in the first week.” In other words, he claimed to show a contrast with the Democratic Party. Kim Chong-in, chairman of the People Power Party emergency committee also said, “The LH incident revealed that the 25 real estate policies were a failure,” and focused on real estate.

Even the negative campaigning focused on real estate: Oh’s land in Naegok-dong; Park Young Sun’s apartment in Tokyo; the alleged privileges Park Hyung-joon, People Power Party Busan mayoral candidate received when purchasing a unit in LCT; and the controversial hike in the jeonse price by Kim Young-choon, Democratic Party candidate for Busan mayor.

On the surface, the reason real estate has swallowed all other issues seems to be a combination of the despair felt by people without homes, who believe, “You can try all your life, but you still can’t buy a home,” and the burden felt by homeowners due to real estate taxes. The popular belief was that people in the Gangbuk area tended to support the Democratic Party, while the people in Gangnam supported the People Power Party. But the latest election is proving this common knowledge to be mistaken. In a recent survey, Oh was ahead of Park in all districts in Seoul. This is clearly different from the Seoul mayoral election in June 2010, when Oh Se-hoon defeated the Democratic Party candidate Han Myeong-sook with a landslide victory in Gangnam despite having lost to Han in seventeen districts centered on the Gangbuk area.

Experts all pointed out that at the bottom of the “real estate rage” was a feeling of betrayal--that the Moon government betrayed the values of fairness and justice, which it had promoted. The issue of unfairness, which emerged from controversy surrounding the alleged privileges received by the daughter of former justice minister Cho Kuk in college admissions; reforms in the Prosecution Service, which ended up too intent on kicking Yoon Seok-youl out; and the multiple houses owned by senior ruling party figures, was pushed beyond the critical point by the LH scandal and exploded. Kim Sang-jo, former Cheongwadae policy director and Democratic Party lawmaker Park Ju-min significantly raised the rent for homes they owned just before the lawmakers passed three bills to protect tenants, which also fueled the public’s anger.

Yoon Tae-gon, director of political analysis at TheMoa, an agenda strategy group said, “The people felt betrayed by the Moon government’s ability to design policies and the naeronambul (double standards: When I’m involved, it’s true love; when you’re involved, it’s an affair) way of behavior, and that was the fundamental problem.” Cho Jin-man, a professor at Duksung Women’s University said, “Behind it lies the shattered expectations the people had for the pro-democracy power,” and Hong Hyung-sik, director of Hangil Research said, “The real estate rage represents the public distrust of the government’s policy capabilities.”

With real estate sucking up all issues like a black hole, a variety of issues concerning the quality of life, such as welfare, care services, gender issues, and support for small business owners who suffered from COVID-19 has been excluded from discussions. The two major candidates came under fire for leaning too much on real estate pledges and neglecting policies on labor. Park promised universal welfare, such as free lunches in kindergarten and free lunches for the vulnerable senior citizens, while Oh promised selective welfare, such as a “relief income” for households earning less than the median income, but they failed to draw any interest. The issues were not discussed in the candidate debate either. The gender issue was used mainly as a tool to attack the sex offenses by the former mayor Park Won-soon, and the issue of minorities showed no trace in the mayoral race. The two candidates proposed measures to help business owners amid the spread of COVID-19, but there was never any discussion on which measures would be effective.

Kim Hyung-joon, a political science professor at Myongji University said, “This election lost the basic function of an election, verifying policy pledges,” and pointed out, “They’re not even discussing which policy other than real estate they would put priority on and promote.” Eom Gyeong-yeong, director of Zeitgeist Institute also pointed out, “It is a typical political election with appeals and naeronambul-style of judgment without any verification of the candidates and their policies.”