KPOP in the Front, Martial Law and Election Fraud Allegations in the Back
CATCH-22
The Republic of Korea currently appears to be going through considerable noise in the process of political power being realigned. I think a significant part of KPOP’s success as a form of cultural invasion is based on its “political harmlessness.” Korean popular fantasy does not look like nationalist propaganda. It implicitly rests on the image of Korea as a politically stable, institutionally mature, modern, and harmless democratic country. It is mostly wrapped in love, friendship, growth, appearance, dance, melody, fandom, and consumable emotions. However, if the current situation continues for several years, the balance of power in global soft power may also change.
In the June 3 local elections held this year, there was a shortage of ballot papers. It was too serious to be dismissed as a simple administrative mistake. Some polling stations ran out of ballot papers, and some voters had to wait. Citizens raised questions about the fairness and credibility of the election, demanding that the vote counting be stopped, that a revote be held, and that those responsible be identified. At the scene, voices also continued to call for an official response from the National Election Commission while shouting “election fraud.” In response, the National Election Commission stated on June 4 that “this matter does not constitute grounds for postponing the election or holding a revote under the Public Official Election Act,” and that “it is impossible to stop the vote counting currently in progress.” According to the final results, the Democratic Party of Korea, now the ruling party, won 12 out of the 16 major metropolitan mayor and governor races nationwide, gaining a major advantage. Compared with the 2022 local elections, when the People Power Party, then the ruling party, won most of the metropolitan races, this means the political landscape has changed dramatically.
A major related event that can be considered in connection with this is that, before this, the Republic of Korea experienced martial law for the first time in 45 years on December 3, 2024. Former President Yoon Suk Yeol, a member of the People Power Party, declared martial law on December 3, which was an unprecedented event in the post-democratization era. Martial law troops were deployed to constitutional institutions, including the National Assembly and the National Election Commission. One of the justifications was the election system and allegations of election fraud. What kind of calculation could have led him to think that allegations of election fraud might justify martial law?
If I analyze this and try to reconstruct his logic as generously as possible, it would look like this.
The opposition party, the Democratic Party of Korea, is a force that gained power through election fraud. (ASSUMPTION)
The National Election Commission is an independent constitutional institution, so external independent verification is necessary.
But if the opposition party really is the beneficiary of election fraud, that same opposition party would try to block verification of the National Election Commission.
In that case, normal investigation and verification could be blocked from within the system.
If so, allegations of election manipulation would not merely be allegations, but a national crisis that paralyzes administrative and judicial functions.
Therefore, the election system should be forcibly verified through martial law, and if substantive evidence of election fraud is found in that process, the legitimacy of martial law would also be strengthened after the fact.
This logic has a closed structure. Its core premise is the assumption that “the opposition party is a force that gained power through election fraud.” If this assumption is true, Yoon Suk Yeol’s actions could look not like a simple rampage, but like an emergency action to reclaim the constitutional order. Conversely, if this assumption is false, Yoon’s martial law becomes a dangerous rampage that used military force to pressure constitutional institutions.
But here, the limitation is clear.
It begins from an unproven premise. If the assumption that “the opposition party gained power through election fraud” is true, his actions may appear to be a restoration of constitutional order. But if that assumption has not yet been proven, mobilizing military force becomes a structure in which the conclusion has been decided in advance and the evidence is searched for afterward.
Unfortunately for him, what Yoon Suk Yeol found was not substantive evidence that the opposition party had committed election fraud. The strongest card he had was the security vulnerability of the National Election Commission’s system. The fact that there were vulnerabilities in the NEC’s computer network and vote counting system is a serious issue. However, vulnerabilities belong, literally, to the realm of possibility. They are not the substance that proves election fraud itself. The fact that a door is poorly secured is different from the fact that someone actually opened that door, entered, and committed a crime. According to reports at the time, the Constitutional Court rejected requests for server inspection, document production, and fact-finding regarding the National Election Commission on the grounds of insufficient relevance and necessity to the impeachment trial.
A possible counterargument is this. If actual evidence of manipulation can only be found by opening the servers and original data, how is one supposed to bring evidence if those servers and original data cannot be opened? If one says at the same time, “There is no evidence, so it cannot be accepted,” and “Opening it to obtain evidence is also prohibited,” then it cannot be proven.
When the normal legal order cannot save the state, who decides the exception? Of course, only when the fact that the normal legal order cannot save the state is unmistakable and self-evident enough for everyone in the world to agree.
Former President Yoon Suk Yeol’s martial law led to his impeachment, and the Constitutional Court pointed to both procedural defects, such as inadequate State Council deliberation and insufficient public notice, and substantive defects, namely that no war, armed conflict, or comparable national emergency had actually occurred.
“
....
비상계엄은 위와 같은 위기상황이 현실적으로 발생하였으나 경력(警力)만으로는 이를 수습할 수 없는 경우에 병력으로써 기존질서를 유지·회복하기 위하여 선포할 수 있는 것이므로, 위기상황이 발생할 우려가 있다는 이유만으로 사전적·예방적으로 선포할 수는 없고, 공공복리의 증진과 같은 적극적 목적을 위하여 선포할 수도 없다(헌재 1996. 2. 29. 93헌마186 참조).
...
2024헌나8 대통령(윤석열) 탄핵 결정문 中
“
In my view, regardless of whether the Constitutional Court was on the side of the opposition or the ruling party, it was almost impossible for it to accept as a correct assumption the proposition that “the opposition party is a force that gained power through election fraud” within the closed logic of “because the opposition party gained power through election fraud, it must be proven that the election was fraudulent.” And I think it would have been beneficial for the Court to approach that proposition very conservatively. No matter how strong the suspicion may be, and no matter how much there may be a “security vulnerability,” which belongs to the realm of possibility, if the use of military force to neutralize constitutional institutions without substantive evidence is accepted, it increases the possibility that a second or third person in power could suspend democracy at any time based only on arbitrary suspicion.
The Constitutional Court judged the unconstitutionality of martial law, but it did not independently verify the election system to a degree that would satisfy the public. After Yoon was eventually impeached, the matter seemed to pass by like a mere incident that left only suspicions behind. However, with the ballot paper shortage in the June 3 election and the incompetence of the National Election Commission, or suspicions about something worse than incompetence, major doubts have once again emerged, and attention is now focused on what will happen next.
For Korea’s cultural invasion project to continue prospering, it seems that Korea will have to either cover this foul-smelling content with a lid as tightly as possible to hide the smell, or make it into something that is no longer foul. KPOP is supposed to be clean, after all. And trying to prove that it is not clean probably would not feel very entertaining either.