Coronavirus could spell disaster for South Korea’s ruling party
On 13 February, South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in predicted that the coronavirus would “disappear before long”. The country had just 28 cases and it had been four days since the last confirmed infection. Citizens were advised that they needn’t wear protective masks outside and to go about their daily business as usual.
In fact, the virus had been spreading among a secretive Christian cult in the city of Daegu. Shortly after Moon’s pronouncement the number of cases skyrocketed. South Korea now plays host to the worst epidemic of coronavirus outside China with 4,812 people infected and 28 deaths as of Tuesday. The spiralling crisis spells big trouble for the President’s left-wing coalition in the upcoming general election on 15 April.
Opposition parties have vowed to make the government’s incompetence in its handling of the outbreak the pivotal issue in the election. They have plenty of ammunition. Moon’s decision to only restrict visitors from Hubei province, rather than from the whole of mainland China as 40 other countries have done, has angered many. The decision plays into a popular narrative among Moon’s detractors – that he’s in thrall to Chinese money and a spineless yes-man to President Xi Jinping. This perception wasn’t helped by reports that South Koreans had started to be quarantined on arrival in Chinese cities, even as Chinese visitors to South Korea could come as go as they pleased.
Even at the time, Moon’s pronouncement that the worst was over seemed misguided. Officials from the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned that it was still too early to tell if the virus had successfully been contained. Members of the Shincheonji Church in Daegu had started to develop symptoms days before. But worshipers carried on attending mass as Moon’s government urged people not to cancel public gatherings and to carry on as normal. The government has since been accused of pinning the blame for the spread of the virus on the Church whose members account for 60% of the country’s coronavirus cases. As of Tuesday, 1.2 million Koreans have signed an online petition calling for Moon’s impeachment over his handling of the crisis.
The slim legislative majority of Moon’s coalition was under threat even before the coronavirus outbreak. He came to office in 2017 following a massive corruption scandal involving the country’s political and business elite which brought down President Park Geun-hye. Moon pledged to enact bold judicial reforms in an attempt to stamp out corruption. But his own justice minister became the subject of a judicial probe and stepped down in October last year just weeks after taking office. The episode prompted hundreds of thousands of pro and anti-government protesters to take to the streets. Moon’s approval ratings have collapsed from the high-70s when he took office to the mid-40s today.
Moon has staked much political capital on détente with North Korea. He has pivoted foreign policy away from America and Japan and towards China, believing that the best way to deal with the North is to bring it into the fold rather than punish it with sanctions. But despite two years of delicate diplomacy his dovish approach has yielded little. Dialogue with North Korea is in deadlock and ballistic missile tests have resumed. Moon’s conservative opponents have accused the President of undermining national security and pressure is mounting on Moon to harden his stance.
South Korea’s export-driven economy had already taken a hit from the slowdown of growth in China (its biggest market) as well as a downturn in the computer chip market and a diplomatic spat with Japan. The coronavirus has made the government’s position even more difficult. Restricting interactions with China will further hamper an already sluggish economy. But the spread of the virus is now likely to do much more damage than an early restriction on Chinese visitors would have caused. Moon has declared “war” on the virus and promised to spend US$25 billion on measures to limit the outbreak. But there are questions about whether it’s now too late for containment to be a feasible strategy.
The newly established conservative opposition party, the United Future Party, will apply maximum pressure on Moon as he enters his final two years in office. Following an outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in 2015 which claimed 38 lives, Moon, then head of the opposition, berated the government for its shoddy response: “The MERS super-spreader is none other than the government itself.” As the election approaches, the opposition will ensure that the irony isn’t lost on many.