South Korea: K-drama
Also: the DPRK, the Caucasus, South Africa, and climate change.
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SOUTH KOREA. K-drama
A parliamentary election is a referendum on the president.
Over 56% of eligible voters cast their ballots Wednesday, a record turnout for a Korean parliamentary election. Exit polls showed the opposition Democratic Party retaining a legislative majority in a rebuke to President Yoon Suk-Yeol.
INTELLIGENCE. Yoon has enacted bold reforms, but many have been divisive, including recent changes to medical practice registrations, which have led to widespread doctor strikes. A series of political scandals have also marred his record (though he has no monopoly on this). The DP is projected to win 197 places in the 300-seat legislature. Anything over 200 would give it an unprecedented supermajority, which could override the president's veto power.
FOR BUSINESS. The opposition currently holds 181 seats to the government's 116. The DP's leader, Lee Jae-myung, came close to beating Yoon in the 2022 presidential poll. Facing corruption charges of his own, Lee however hopes to run again in 2027. Besides graft, the economy was also on the ballot. Exports have rebounded and growth is forecast to be 2.3%, but inflation remains at 3.1% and many young Koreans are priced out of the housing market.
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NORTH KOREA. Pariah complex
Pyongyang comes in from the cold.
Beijing said Tuesday its third-ranked official, Zhao Leiji, would visit Pyongyang to reflect China’s “profound friendship” with the DPRK. Ethnic-Chinese residents have returned for the first time since the pandemic, China's embassy said.
INTELLIGENCE. After four years of self-imposed isolation (and many more as a diplomatic outcast), North Korea is reaching out to its neighbours, Russia and China, and flirting with establishing ties with Japan. It has also sent envoys to Mongolia and Southeast Asia, and even Western diplomats have visited to examine the prospect of reopening shuttered missions. Yet threats against the South, and assistance to Russia, will stall any true normalisation.
FOR BUSINESS. Beijing and Moscow are courting Pyongyang and enjoying the angst in Washington, but there’s only so far they’ll go. Besides minerals for China and Soviet-era munitions for Russia (plus some experimental weapons tested on Ukraine), there’s little the North can offer. Further, many of the DPRK’s cyber victims are Russian and Chinese, and Pyongyang has form for being fickle. In 2017, the North called China "the excrement of reactionaries".
THE CAUCASUS. Peace de résistance
France upsets a NATO ally on Armenia.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said Wednesday that Armenia was in "standby" relations with Turkey and did not want to "argue" with Russia. Last week, Turkey said it opposed Armenia holding talks with the US and EU without Azerbaijan.
INTELLIGENCE. Turkey has been put offside by Armenia’s outreach to the West (though not as much as Russia), yet it’s France’s provision of weapons that has caused most consternation. With a long history of intra-NATO disputes, including on Libya and Cyprus, Paris and Ankara are now jousting in the Caucasus. An additional complication could be Turkey’s latest trade dispute with Israel. Despite the religious differences, Israel is a close partner with Azerbaijan.
FOR BUSINESS. The changes in Caucasus diplomacy (Armenia shifting from Russia to the West; Azerbaijan torn between Turkey and Israel; new trade corridors between Russia and Iran, as well as China, Central Asia, and Europe) can be hard to keep track of. The involvement of French weapons could make this yet more complex. Paris has its own agenda against Moscow, but in pursuit of grand strategy it risks igniting highly combustible petty politics too.
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SOUTH AFRICA. Zuma party
A former president is back on the ballot.
South Africa's Electoral Court overturned a ban on former president Jacob Zuma Tuesday, reviving concerns his new uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) Party could further erode the African National Congress's majority in elections due on 29 May.
INTELLIGENCE. Zuma had been barred from contesting due to a 15-month jail sentence in 2021 for defying a court order. Zuma was charged with major corruption during his 2009-18 presidential term. His imprisonment led to a week of riots in KwaZulu-Natal, his ethnic stronghold, in which 354 died. MK is polling around 14% and this could rise with Zuma on the ticket. The ANC has seen its lead drop from 57.5% at the last election to a polling average of under 40%.
FOR BUSINESS. The ANC will likely remain the largest party after 29 May but will need to govern in coalition for the first time since the end of Apartheid. Whether it chooses the moderate Democratic Alliance (polling at 25%), the far-left Economic Freedom Fighters (11%) or Zuma's MK as partner would present a wildly different outcome. The ANC plus DA would be best for the economy. The ANC plus EFF worst. An alliance without the ANC seems impossible.
CLIMATE CHANGE. Warm and fuzzy
An environmental ruling is certain to be contested.
Swiss media Wednesday described a European Court of Human Rights ruling, that Bern had not done enough on climate change, as "absurd". The EU's climate data service said Tuesday that last month was the warmest March on record.
INTELLIGENCE. The EU's climate records only go back to 1940, though there are other datasets going back to 1850. The jurisprudence on climate is even less established and the ECtHR's ruling will be complicated by its concurrent dismissal of two other climate-related suits. Still, the ruling has given hope to climate campaigners disappointed with slow political and economic progress to net-zero. Expect more such cases (and countersuits) in a court near you.
FOR BUSINESS. Courts in Australia, Latin America, and Korea are mulling similar cases. India last month ruled its citizens had climate rights. While there are no penalties for Switzerland, the ECtHR has set a precedent, including for its 46 member states. Yet such rulings might only encourage a harder legislative swing towards climate scepticism, as the Netherlands' 2019 court ruling on emissions did at the ballot in 2023. The reaction of the Swiss press is telling.