The main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy won no seat in last month’s parliamentary by-elections held in four constituencies. The trouncing defeat shocked the opposition, which might have hoped the ballooning graft scandal involving close aides to President Park Geun-hye would turn the tide of voter sentiment against the ruling Saenuri Party.
Saenuri candidates garnered three seats, with the remaining one grabbed by an independent contender who bolted from the NPAD in March. The main opposition party might have won in a Seoul constituency if another deserter had not split anti-Saenuri votes with its candidate.
But the results of the latest round of by-elections apparently reminded the NPAD of an electoral factor that is being set against the liberal opposition camp: a growing portion of elderly voters, who tend to be more conservative and show a higher turnout than younger voters.
A parliamentary constituency comprising a rural county and an urban town, in which a Saenuri candidate won an overwhelming victory in the April 29 by-elections, gave a vivid example of this trend. Voter turnout surpassed 50 percent in the rural area with a large elderly population, while less than 30 percent of voters cast ballots in the urban district.
In the run-up to next year’s parliamentary elections and the 2017 presidential vote, the main parties will pay more heed to ways of winning senior voters’ hearts.
According to figures from the National Election Commission, voters in their 50s and 60s accounted for 39.2 percent of the electorate in 2012, when the last presidential election was held, up from 29.3 percent in 2002. In contrast, the proportion of 20-something and 30-something voters shrank from 48.3 percent to 38.8 percent over the cited period. The gap between the sizes of the different age groups is set to grow in accordance with the country’s demographic changes. Senior citizens’ tendency of being more eager to go to polls will further increase their influence on election results.
A controversial deal reached between the two main parties last week on changing the pension schemes for government employees and ordinary citizens might be seen as reflecting the priority they put on the elderly electorate.
The proposed changes would result in making future generations shoulder more burden and receive less benefit.
Under the revised pension system for public employees, which was designed to be implemented in stages over a long time span, civil servants to be recruited in the future would see a wider gap between contributions and entitlements. But those who have already retired or are closer to the retirement age would suffer no disadvantage.
What is more unfair for the younger generation is the agreement by the two parties to raise payouts from the national pension service for ordinary citizens. Most of the additional cost would be shouldered by young workers while aged people would become immediate beneficiaries.
The NPAD insisted on attaching the agreement to raise national pension payment to the deal on revising the scheme for civil servants, probably hoping its initiative would help boost its standing among senior voters. The Saenuri Party, for its part, might have worried that it would lose favor with the elderly electorate by rejecting the proposal.
Neither found any problem with agreeing to raise pension payouts by about 25 percent without suggesting plans on how to fund the cost that is estimated to exceed 1,660 trillion won ($1.53 trillion) over the next 70 years.
In the face of growing public backlash, the Saenuri Party rejected the NPAD’s demand to specify the rate of increase in a parliamentary document as a precondition for the passage of the bill on revising the civil servants’ pension scheme. As a result, the National Assembly failed to pass the bill Wednesday as agreed on by the two parties.
But the fuss over changing the pension system could be a signal that political populism biased in favor of elderly voters will deepen in the years to come.
The rapid aging of the country’s population will make it inevitable to increase spending to support elderly people. But younger generations should not be made to shoulder an unduly heavy burden due to reckless political calculations.
In the face of economic difficulty and uncertain future, many Korean youths are delaying or abandoning getting married and having a baby. Worsening their conditions with populist measures designed to please elderly voters would result in weakening the foundation for keeping social stability and economic growth. Any sensible senior citizen would share this concern.
Regretfully, our political leaders can hardly be counted on to set aside their partisan interests and take a farsighted and balanced approach to coordinating burdens and benefits between generations. By having endorsed the financially infeasible deal, leaders of the two parties ― Rep. Kim Moo-sung of the Saenuri Party and Rep. Moon Jae-in of the NPAD ― called into question their capabilities of thinking hard and making a reasonable judgment about critical matters.
It is time for younger citizens to make their voices louder in Korean politics to make politicians more cautious of placing a greater burden on them. The first and foremost move is to cast ballots in elections. Their higher voter turnout would help put an effective pressure on the main parties to refrain from churning out populist pledges to court elderly voters.
This could help Korean politics avoid being drawn deeper into the trap of reckless populism. Let’s hope the recent controversy over the aborted pension deal will bring more young voters to polling booths in the coming elections.
Kim Kyung-ho is an editorial writer for The Korea Herald. He can be reached at khkim@heraldcorp.com. ― Ed.
