General Election, 10 April 2024

The Republic of Korea held its 22^nd parliamentary elections on 10 April 2024 (Kim 2024). The unicameral National Assembly is made up of 300 members. Of these, 253 are directly elected, while 47 are elected by proportional representation (Inter-Parliamentary Union n.d.). In 2024 the Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) won 175 seats while the People Power Party (PPP), the former incumbents, won 108. The remaining 17 out of 300 seats went to smaller parties. While the PPP lost power to the DPK, the latter was just short of securing a supermajority (Inter-Parliamentary Union n.d.). 

The country’s electoral management body is the National Election Commission (NEC) of the Republic of Korea. The NEC is run by commissioners who are guaranteed their tenure and status via the Constitution and are prohibited from joining political parties or participating in political activities (NEC n.d.). In total there are nine commissioners of the NEC including a spokesperson, a standing commissioner and seven others (NEC n.d.).

In October 2023, the South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) concluded that the NEC was at high risk of North-Korean backed cyber-attacks aimed at fostering political unrest and confusion prior to the election (Watt 2024). Moreover, the NIS revealed that the attackers could modify voter data and manipulate an election outcome (Lee 2024; Watt 2024). On 1 February 2024, the National Cybersecurity Strategy was revised accordingly (Kim 2024). 

South Korea faced a significant number of disinformation threats in the months leading up to the parliamentary elections. The NEC announced that from 19 January through 16 February, 129 AI-generated deepfakes and other instances of election-related disinformation were observed (Lee 2024). In December 2023 the National Assembly had revised an election law to prosecute and punish the use of deepfakes to undermine elections – with up to seven years in prison or a 50 million won (USD $37,500) fine. This law went into effect on 29 January (Korea Herald 2024).  

In a significant moment of election-related violence, an attempt was made on the life of Lee Jae-Myung, leader of the main opposition party (DPK) with fewer than 100 days to go before polling.  On 3 January 2024. Jae-Myung was giving an address to reporters at an airport construction site near Busan when he was attacked by a 66 year-old man with a knife (Ryall 2024). The assassination attempt was seen by some as a sign of increasing polarization and disaffection with politics (Ryall 2024). However, fears of similar pre-election incidents did not materialize. 

Voter turnout was 67 per cent, which the NEC reported was the highest on record over 32 years (International IDEA 2024a; Lee 2024). This was a 0.8 per cent increase from turnout at the last election in 2020 (International IDEA 2024b). 

2024’s elections resulted in the highest ever number of women  candidates elected to the Korean parliament: an increase—in the directly contested seats—from 29 MPs in 2020 to 36 (Ji-Ye 2024). However, the overall proportion of women MPs was virtually unchanged at 19.2 per cent(Statista 2024a). 

On 3 December 2024, the NEC was raided by the military during the brief period of martial law declared by President Yoon Suk Yeol. Yoon, in a public address, claimed that the NEC had been hacked by North Korea (AA 2024). On 14 December Yoon—facing vigorous rejection of martial law by legislators and civil society—was impeached by the Parliament.