Winning Honam takes persistence, not excuses

The People Power Party did not elect a single mayor, governor or county chief in the Honam region in the June 3 local elections. Among 41 local executive races across Gwangju, South Jeolla and North Jeolla, it fielded candidates only for mayor of Mokpo and county chief of Buan. Its candidate for mayor of Jeonju was disqualified for violating election rules, while the party declined to nominate anyone in the remaining 38 races. Local elections held early in a president's term generally favor the governing party. Even so, the outcome invites a more fundamental question: Did the main opposition party have the determination to compete in Honam in the first place?

For the Democratic Party of Korea, the Daegu-North Gyeongsang region, or TK, is as politically inhospitable as Honam is for the People Power Party. Yet it continues to contest races there, even where victory appears highly unlikely. This year, it nominated candidates in 27 of 31 mayoral and county chief contests in TK, skipping only Uiseong, Cheongdo, Seongju and Uljin. In the Busan-Ulsan-South Gyeongsang region, or PK, it fielded candidates in 36 of 39 races, standing aside only in Ulsan's Dong District, where it backed a unified Progressive Party candidate, Busan's Yeonje District and South Gyeongsang's Hapcheon County. Although the Democratic Party of Korea again failed to win a local executive post in TK, it captured 12 municipal and county chief positions and the Busan mayoralty, won by Jeon Jae-su, in PK. That represents a striking improvement from the 2022 local elections, when its only victory across both TK and PK was the county chief's office in Namhae, South Gyeongsang Province.

The People Power Party has shown before that conservatives are not destined to lose in Honam. Lee Jung-hyun, a former chairman of the party's nomination committee, won parliamentary seats in Suncheon-Gokseong in 2014 and Suncheon in 2016, proving that conservative candidates could break through in the region. In the 2022 presidential election, former President Yoon Suk Yeol received 12.75% of the Honam vote, the highest ever for a conservative presidential nominee. With his nationwide victory over Lee Jae-myung decided by just 0.73 percentage point, that support from Honam proved far from insignificant.

Since then, however, the party has done little to expand that foothold. Yoon's declaration of martial law, his subsequent impeachment and the conservative consolidation pursued under Jang Dong-hyuk's leadership drove away even the party's remaining supporters in Honam. During the 2024 general election, when the party suffered a heavy defeat as the ruling party, criticism intensified after only two politicians from Honam, including Kang Sun-young and In Yo-han, were initially placed in electable positions on the proportional representation list. The party hurriedly reshuffled the rankings to move Cho Bae-sook into a safer spot. Yet the belief that "Honam will never vote for us, no matter what we do" still appears to linger within the party.

Former Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum, who lost the Daegu mayoral race despite winning 45.05% of the vote, had every reason to feel disappointed after coming closer to victory than ever before. Instead, he accepted the verdict of the electorate, saying, "A farmer never blames the field he tills." Former President Roh Moo-hyun, who lost his parliamentary bid in Busan in the 2000 general elections while campaigning against regionalism, expressed the same sentiment, insisting that a farmer should never blame the field and respecting the voters' choice. Two years later, he was elected president. The Democratic Party of Korea's gradual gains in Yeongnam have been built on that persistence, returning election after election rather than writing the region off. Voters have slowly responded in kind. The People Power Party, by contrast, effectively conceded Honam before this election even began, showing little willingness to compete. If it still believes the problem lies with the field instead of the farmer, it may be time to reconsider that assumption.