The Koreas | Politics | East Asia

Oh Se-hoon Becomes Seoul’s Mayor for the 5th Time

Why Seoul picked the PPP incumbent yet again, and what it means for the city.

The incumbent mayor of Seoul, Oh Se-hoon, won re-election in the mayoral race on June 3. For Oh, though, it was an unexpected victory. All the polls and exit polls signaled his defeat. Up until 7 a.m. on June 4, 13 hours after voting closed, he trailed on the heels of his rival from the Democratic Party (DP). It was only around 9 a.m. that it was announced Oh won the race by 1 percent, some 60,000 more votes than his DP rival, securing another term as mayor of South Korea’s capital. It will be his fifth term, albeit nonconsecutively. 

A sleek and amiable environmental lawyer in the 1990s, Oh entered politics in 2000 as a legislator from today’s People Power Party (PPP), South Korea’s opposing conservative party. Rather a refreshing figure with a penchant for the reform of domestic politics, he became mayor of Seoul in 2006. Then 45, he was the youngest person ever to hold that post. Oh wanted to make Seoul more aesthetically presentable, refashioning the city’s architecture and infrastructure. In 2010, UNESCO designated Seoul as a Creative City of Design. 

His second term was more tumultuous. In December 2010, the Seoul Council passed an ordinance to provide free lunch to all elementary school kids. Oh denounced the plan as universal welfare. He called for a referendum. He raised the stakes by swearing to resign as mayor should the referendum go against him. 

For most Seoulites, perhaps the most enduring image of him came from the August 2011 press conference ahead of the referendum. As cameras flashed, he choked up while imploring people to vote against free school lunches. Topping it all, he kowtowed on the dais.

Irrespective of where voters stood on welfare policy, it was quite bizarre to see a mayor staking his career and crying in front of the nation just to deny free meals to school kids. He was pelted from all sides, even his own party. All the theatrics and jeopardizing his mayoralty over free school meals were deemed unnecessary and out of proportion. 

The referendum failed, falling short of the target voter turnout. At least he was true to his word; Oh resigned.

For better or for worse, the incident proved he was capable of acting independently and defying party pressure. That trend harked back to 2004 when he refused to run for the general elections due to the conservative party’s failure to implement the internal overhaul Oh called for. Still, stepping down as Seoul’s mayor over such a parochial and innocuous matter was undoubtedly a political faux pas. 

From 2012 to 2016, he steered clear of politics. During this political hiatus, he lectured on public policy and spent time in Peru and Rwanda as an adviser on urban administration and environmental policy. His return to politics was arduous. He failed to win a parliamentary seat in both the 2016 and 2020 general elections. He also lost the PPP national convention in 2019 for the party leadership.

Oh made a successful comeback as mayor of Seoul following the 2021 by-election. His predecessor, Park Won-soon, had committed suicide the previous year following allegations of sexual harassment by his secretary. The by-election took place at the height of COVID-19, and scandal after scandal had riddled the ruling DP, collectively boosting Oh’s bid for another term. In 2022, at the end of Park’s original term, Oh was re-elected as Seoul’s mayor for the fourth time. 

Along with some run-of-the-mill transportation and social care policies, tax-guzzling environmental projects marked the past few years of Oh’s tenure. Still, most notable was his absence during the Itaewon tragedy in October 2022 – he was abroad in Europe on a business trip. At the time, he was widely censured for having left Seoul when the largest unorganized annual event was set to take place.

His re-election for the fifth time reflected not so much his personal competency and charisma as the success of Oh’s rhetoric. On his barnstorming, he continued to exhort the voters to “please keep Seoul as the last bastion.” The Lee Jae-myung administration represents the DP; the party also holds a massive majority in the National Assembly. As the ruling party was set to sweep up other local governments – except for the historically conservative southeast – Oh dug in his heels as the last conservative standing against what he claimed was the unbridled exercise of power by the executive and legislative branches.

The other prong of his tactic was to openly tussle with the PPP leadership before the June local elections. At first, he threatened not to run on the PPP ticket. Oh labeled himself as a rational conservative and staked out Seoul as his turf from which to rebuild South Korea’s conservatism. For that, he needed to distance himself from the PPP. 

The PPP “hasn’t shown convincing change and resolution,”........

© The Diplomat