Well, so here is a bunch of fun facts about the election:
a) Dems got their traditional seat from Jeolla (traditional Democratic area in Southwest) back, which was held by Ahn Chul Soo's more centrist party (which underwent merging and has had like three different names).
b) Dems lost a few seats in Daegu and Busan, which was expected since those are conservative cities, but way made up for it in gains in Seoul and its surrounding province.
c) The conservatives (which change name every 5 seconds, so I won't even bother naming their party) lost quiet a bit of their leadership. Most prominently, Hwan Kyo Ahn, chairman of the party, and Na Kyong Won, party floor leader. Funnily enough, former chairman Hong Jun Pyo returned by winning as an independent.
d) Smaller parties got destroyed. Some of it in part due to small parties getting the ruling party to change the rules for assigning the proportional representation seats (47 out of 300 are proportional, the rest are FPTP district representation) in exchange for prosecutorial reform. The funniest part is, this new rule was really dumb and helped the big two parties game the system by creating satellite parties.
e) The government's compeetent coronavirus response definitely helped them. Getting a majority in S. Korea is difficult at any time, with the Dem's previous record being 152 seats. What they got was an insane filibuster proof super majority. I was worried that the brewing Ulsan local election corruption case + Cho Guk scandal would do them in, but that has been put on the side.
f) Lee Nak Yeon, former Dem prime minister, wins a seat, and makes him the most likely Dem candidate for president after Moon's 5 years term is up.
g) Three prominent feminist figures won their district. This is also the most women elected to the assembly, although it is still at a pitiful 11 %.
h) This is the first time a North Korean defector won an assembly seat.
