Our Open Party gets spanked again

In another sign that last year's Kuk Hoe elections which put Our Open Party (OOP, Uri) in the majority were a fluke, they failed to win any of the six seats up for grabs in by-elections yesterday.  Five went to the center-right Hanaradang (Grand National Party, GNP) and one went to a conservative independent.

What makes it tougher for them is the fact that they had previously won five of those same seats just one year ago:

The by-election's outcome caught the Uri Party completely off guard as the party had been banking on regaining a majority in the National Assembly. Saturday's by-elections, however, further diminished the influence of the ruling party's 146 seats in the unicameral house as the National Assembly was restored to its maximum 299 seats.

The results represent a significant change in public sentiment toward the governing party, according to political analysts, as five of the six seats were previously Uri Party seats, held by legislators who were forced to step down for electoral law violations.

It gets better (or worse, depending on your outlook):

A sea change in public opinion was also evident in the by-elections for local government positions also held on Saturday. Up for grabs were seven mayoral and gubernatorial posts as well as 31 seats at local councils throughout the country.

The main opposition party's candidates won five of the seven leadership posts up for contention, including one to mayor of Hwaseong in Gyeonggi Province, while the ruling party again failed to win any.

The mayoral post in Mokpo, traditionally a strong base for the the ruling Uri Party, went to the splinter Millennium Democratic Party.

I had once thought that the Millennium Democratic Party (Minjoodang, MDP) might fold up camp and join with the OOP but they have been pretty successful in their former base in the Jolla provinces, so they might just hold on until the next round of legislative elections in 2008.

We don't want to overstate the significance of this election.  First of all, they were only for six seats in a 299-seat assembly.  Also, until the Day of Reckoning full legislative elections in 2008 the center-left parties (OOP, MDP and Democratic Labor Party) will continue to have a fairly comfortable majority.

Having said that, a look at where the OOP lost is revealing.  That the GNP won both seats in it's traditional base of North and South Gyeongsang provinces is not surprising.  But the GNP also won both seats in Gyeonggi Province, which could be seen as a backlash against the OOP's proposed capital move (which the GNP has as turns opposed and acquiesced to, sometimes at the same time).

The results that really must have kicked the OOP leadership in the nads was their two loses in South Chungcheong Province.  After all, the OOP's basic electoral strategy is to add the Chungcheong Provinces to their Jolla base and pick up enough seats in Seoul/Incheon/Gyeonggi to get them over the top.  These latest loses, combined with the MDP's renewed strength in Jolla, cast doubt on that strategy.

I think they believed that they could continue to ride the capital relocation issue to success in Chungcheong.  The problem is that, once they had settled on a single location for the new capital (now reduced to some kind of administrative city), every town in Chungcheong that was not picked lost its reason to vote OOP.  That meant that the provinces' basic conservative tendencies could resurface.

The good news for the OOP is that they have three more years to come up with a new plan.