By Jenny Lee and Sunny Um WIRED Korea

South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s ambitious policy agenda is about to gain momentum with his party scoring a thumping victory in this week’s general elections.

The ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) and its satellite Civil Together Party (CTP) have secured an absolute majority, notching a whopping 180 seats out of the 300 up for grabs in the National Assembly. On the other hand, its main conservative opposition United Future Party (UFP) and its satellite Future Korea Party (FKP) have only obtained 103 seats.

According to the National Election Commission, more than 66 percent of the country’s 44 million eligible voters cast ballots in Wednesday’s elections, the highest voter turnout for legislative elections in 28 years. 

The elections came at a time when the novel coronavirus pandemic is shutting down many parts of the world. Having endured the first major outbreaks outside China, South Korea has seen a sharp decline in the number of new infections, which has dipped below 30 for the four consecutive days.

Many analysts including Kang Joo-hyun, professor of Political Science at Sookmyung Women's University, point out that President Moon’s successful handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, which includes aggressive testing and contact tracing, led the public to “look past” the faltering economy, stalled engagement with North Korea and corruption scandals involving Moon’s closest aides and resulted in a surge in his approval rating, which stood at 55.7 percent in the third week of April.

The election victory has essentially given President Moon, who has entered into the second half of his single, five-year term, and his party a clear mandate to continue their policy reform drive, which had been met with resistance from conservative parties. They include reforming the powerful prosecution. 

The government has been pushing for an establishment of a state investigative agency to launch a corruption probe into high-ranking officials including prosecutors as well as granting more investigative authority to the police. With the bills on prosecution reform having passed in early January, Moon is expected to speed up the follow-up measures, including the appointment of the agency head.

The crushing victory of the DPK is also expected to boost President Moon’s current economic policies. One of the economic changes that the DPK promised is more investment in emerging technologies, such as big data, 5G network and artificial intelligence, to foster the domestic industry, create more jobs, and grow exports.

Families who run and control big conglomerates in Korea, so-called “chaebol”, are also keeping wary eyes on the DPK’s win, as the party previously announced to push the revision of the Commercial Act. The revision bill includes several clauses that would put a strain on chaebol, including stronger punishments on economic crimes of company owners or major stockholders.

President Moon would also be able to push ahead to maintain the current level of minimum wage. During his presidency, the minimum hourly pay in Korea went up from 6,470 won ($5.27) to 8,590 won. As the economy became weaker since the outbreak of COVID-19, the UFP members have been demanding that the minimum hourly pay be set lower than the current level, but the ruling party has made no response as of today.