(Original map of
United Korea by
@Metallist)
The
2052 Korean presidential election was held on 17 November and 19 December 2052. The fourteenth presidential election since South Korean democratization, the sixth presidential election since Korean unification, and the fifth to be held under a two-round system, the 2052 election was held in the wake of the assassination of President Mae Sung-min on January 14th of 2051. Following procedures outlaid in the Constitution of the Korean Republic, Prime Minister Ryang Do-hyeon succeeded Sung-min as President, becoming the first Northerner to be elected President of Korea.
Of course, this wasn't without controversy. Although the South Korean nationality law ensured Ryang Do-hyeon's citizenship, the United Democratic MP from Rason was a North Korean citizen for nearly 23 years and served in the KPA. Although he did not have a proven criminal history and defected to South Korea in the 2020s according to official records, conservatives within the National Liberal Party and anti-DPRK liberals openly doubted his loyalty to South Korea and the "Southern values" of liberty and democracy. The Honam wing of the United Democratic Party despised Ryang, whom they felt benefitted from Gyeongsang chaebols just as much as Sung-min did, and was a social conservative to boot (not that Gyeongsang liked him much either; Changwon in particular saw many demonstrations against "Kim's bastard son"). However, this wasn't a case of universal hatred, as Ryang was very well-liked not just in the North of the country, but also in many Southern cities and towns, particularly Seoul and Wonju, mainly for his contributions to the continued Korean "cultural unification" and economic development in the face of Chinese and Indian encroachment.
Although President Ryang and National Liberal MP Min Young-sik initially led first round opinion polls, with far-right Christian Patriot candidate Yong Tae-young close behind, Min Young-sik's campaign plunged into crisis after allegations of bribery and financial ties to an Ethiopian contractor group. "Tomocagate", as it was called, was further exacerbated by Min Young-sik's Changwon speech that included a gaffe about "Koreans and Ethiopians being brothers", an apparent attempt to reference the Korean War which left Southerners confused and pissed off a number of Northerners. Meanwhile, Yong Tae-young had to deal with his history of membership in a number of K-pop boy bands - a fact that, while having little effect on the general population, caused his base of conservative Christians in Gangwon to greatly diminish. Other candidates failed to fill in the anti-Ryang vacuum; all of them but one.
Into the ring stepped Jo Myung-hee, businessman, Mayor of Naju and former singer. Having studied in an American university for some time, Jo developed peculiarly libertarian ideas over time, viewing the overt government intervention that has been prevalent in South Korean history as ultimately unsuitable as a solution to the problems Korea of 2052 faced. While most politicians found Jo's ideas strange at best, Naju's record economic growth during his tenure as mayor spoke for itself, and anti-Ryang conservatives and liberals found Jo Myung-hee the perfect candidate against Ryang's "illiberalism and corruption", having the perfect combination of invigorating charisma and unifying ideology. Thus, Myung-hee's campaign as the nominee of the recently-formed Free People's Party, once viewed as a minor sideshow with a spoiler effect, rapidly ballooned in size, ensuring Myung-hee the honor of participating in the second round.
The second round was unusually competitive. Jo quickly gained ground in the deep south of the country, particularly among the urban population, to the point of being endorsed by major politicians, media figures and chaebols alike. However, Ryang still had the support of most of the Korean population and a good part of business, and was able to strike back against Jo, attacking him over his latent anti-Northern prejudice (which he quickly tied to opposition to unification), overt populism, foreign policy inexperience and his unorthodox political views (most infamously criticized in the so-called "Snake" ad, which juxtaposed Jo's speeches with particularly unsavory excerpts from texts of "major libertarian thinkers"; it is believed that the serpentine imagery helped Ryang take back the Christian demographic in Gangwon as well as opponents of the Madisonian regime). Jo attacked back, trumping up accusations of bribery and war crimes as well as criticizing the President's economic policy and close relations with Russia. In the end, however, opposition to Jo Myung-hee (exacerbated by various October scandals) was too great, and Ryang Do-hyeon won a second term by a decisive seven point margin. However, Jo was successful in sowing the seeds of Korean libertarianism, which would be inevitably echoed in the rest of Asia.