Park Geun Hye didn’t lose. That means she won. (updated)

Ruling parties are supposed to lose mid-term elections, especially when they look incompetent, uninspiring, visionless, and scandalous. I expected Park Geun Hye’s Saenuri Party to lose, and frankly, it deserved to. Despite all of this, it didn’t lose, which means it won.

Saenuri’s opposition was the New Politics Alliance for Democracy, formerly known as the Democratic Party, the Uri Party, the Millennium Democratic Party, and before that, Prince. It has not weathered Korea’s modest political realignment well. At the moment, it is split between a moderate faction, led by Ahn Cheol-Soo, which knows that the Sunshine era is over, and a hard-left faction composed of people who pleasure themselves to video of the fall of Saigon. It went into the election factionalized and disunited, with its hard left openly hostile to Ahn. Before the Sewol Ferry disaster, this split had hurt the NPAD’s approval rating.

None of this prevented the NPAD from effectively blocking a North Korean human rights law in the National Assembly. Thanks in part to the NPAD and its predecessors, South Koreans may know and care less about (and do less about) humanitarian conditions in North Korea than most Europeans or North Americans.

The NPAD found its voice over the Sewol Ferry sinking, and for the most part, that voice was crass, opportunistic, and exploitative. If Saenuri deserved to lose, the NPAD deserved to lose even more. One suspects that this result will exacerbate its divisions. Good.

We may all give a bitter, half-hearted little cheer now, because at least President Park’s North Korea policy won’t have to triangulate even further toward vagueness and irrelevance. With the election safely behind her, she might even the confidence to tell us just what her big unification plan really means, or to scrap it if (as seems likely) it really doesn’t mean anything at all.

I had half-expected the North Koreans to test something threatening before this election. I suspect their talks with Japan and the effect of the Sewol Ferry sinking persuaded them not to change the subject just yet. I don’t know if the North Koreans will convince themselves that Park really lost or not, or how they would react to either conclusion. I suppose, in due course, they’ll provoke just because that’s their occupation.

~   ~   ~

Update: Here’s something that’s really worth celebrating — Incheon Mayor Song Young-Gil won’t be around to blame his own country the next time North Korea shells his constituents. I’m always pleased, of course, when at least half the people of South Korea defy North Korea’s directives as to how they should vote.