The 66-year-old chef and restaurant owner is one face of South Korea's North Chungcheong Province, a swing region that has become even more pivotal at a time of deep political polarisation in Asia's fourth-largest economy.
Voters are now looking for the winner of the June 3 snap election to calm the economic and political shocks that have roiled the country since Yoon's December 3 martial law decree led to months of economic downturn and sparked nationwide protests.
In swing regions such as North Chungcheong Province, where Jechon is located, the ruling conservative party risks losing a big chunk of its vote base with many voters blaming the martial law debacle for weaker private consumption and easing export momentum. Park’s business crashed after Yoon’s declaration with some of her biggest customers who are local council officials cancelling dinner reservations in groups of five to 10.
Lee, who defied Yoon’s martial law decree, had a 10-percentage point lead over Kim in one of the final opinion polls issued on Tuesday with 45% of voters trusting him to revive the economy compared to 32% for Kim.
On Friday, right-winger Kim said voting for Lee would end up “collapsing our economy”, hoping to sway voters in small cities such as Jecheon, an inland town of about 130,000 surrounded by mountainous tourist spots, who are looking for a turning point to revive South Korea’s fortunes. But the martial law call continues to weigh heavily on conservative chances. “We definitely had fewer customers, especially from office dinners, after the martial law declaration. It did bite us hard,“ said Choi, a Chinese restaurant owner in Pangyo, a town south of Seoul.
HEAVY ON SPECTACLE
The shock move rattled markets and put the won among the region’s worst-performing currencies of the last year, hurt business sentiment even before exporters absorbed the full force of U.S. President Donald Trump’s punitive tariff policies.
Whoever wins the June 3 election will face an economy that contracted in the first quarter, manage negotiations with Washington to avoid high tariffs, and assuage voters such as Park who are seeing their living standards go backwards from elevated grocery bills and weak spending.
“I wish they had taken housing supply and boosting the domestic market more seriously in their pledges,“ said 59-year-old Jung Soo-hyeon. “But perhaps because it’s a snap election, that kind of in-depth consideration seems to be missing — which is a bit disappointing.”
A win for Lee could spur “faster economic growth in the short term,“ Kim Jin-wook of Citi Research said.
While both top candidates have pledged to draft a second supplementary budget for the year as soon as the election is over, Lee has also promised vouchers to help local businesses and subsidies for childcare, youth, and the elderly.
“Lee’s party seems to be willing to give out more to those who are struggling,“ Park said, emphasizing that “change” is important. ($1=1,376.1000 won) (Additional reporting by Yeonbin Park; Editing by Saad Sayeed)
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