Kim Beom-jin,34,an office worker and his wife Lee Yeun-hee,33,a preschool teacher,struggled to buy a property when they got married in 2020 – average apartment prices have doubled in Seoul since 2017. They are anxious about job security and believe Lee has engaged in a culture war on gender issues that have divided Korean society.
“I had to be here to support Yoon,” said Kim,who used his lunch hour to join the rally,describing Yoon’s campaign promises to deliver jobs and houses to young Koreans as “the most trustworthy he has ever heard”.
Gender,perhaps more than any other non-economic issue,has dominated this campaign,after a series of #MeToo scandals divided Korean opinion and women gained confidence in their economic and political power. Seoul has seen feminist and anti-feminist rallies,with rival groups including Ordinary Men Who Speak Out (feminist) and New Men’s Solidarity (anti-feminists) engaged in slanging matches during the campaign.
Yoon has cultivated support among young men in their 20s and 30s – the key swing vote in the election – by painting Moon’s Gender Ministry as divisive while appealing to sexist perceptions that men had been forced out of jobs by women.
“Lee seems to purposefully want to divide our society by gender,” said Kim.
Park Sung-min,the president of MIN political consulting,said,“young men especially think that they are the ones being discriminated against by what they think are anti-male policies”.
In December Yoon claimed feminism has “been politicised to make it emotionally hard for men and women to date”.
The comments are deliberately incendiary but they appeal to young men who feel disenfranchised and some young women who support them. That perception was turbocharged in 2020 after the government removed a bonus point system that gave men extra benefits in the job market after they finished their compulsory military service.
“The most pressing campaign issue,at least for me and my friends,is the gender divide,” said Cho Min-jin,20,who studies sustainable development and cooperation at Yonsei University.
“The current government has divided us between feminists and anti-feminists. So-called for-women policies have rather brought social discrimination against men,” she said. “Yes,the tight job market and housing prices surge are also pressing issues. However,the gender issues outweigh the other two,at least for me.”
Jae Jok Park,an assistant professor of foreign policy at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies,said Yoon had engaged in a “Trump-style campaign to get young voters”.
“In order to win the election Yoon has showcased a macho campaign. But I don’t think it will reflect in actual policy,” he said.
Yoon,who styles himself as “the servant of the people”,is a political novice who owns a $3.3 million apartment in Seoul’s exclusive Gangnam district. The lawyer made his name as a brash prosecutor,but Park believes once in office he is likely to delegate to experts in his cabinet.
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“First we need to replace the Democratic Party and send them home,” Yoon told the crowd on Monday.
Lee is a political veteran who went to work in a factory as a teenager to support his family only to have his arm shattered in an accident. The 57-year-old went on to become a human rights lawyer and governor of Gyeonggi province,before being appointed to succeed Moon last year.
In upmarket Yeouido on Tuesday,Seoul’s version of Wall Street,Lee attempted to recast his social welfare background by appealing to the business community. Eloquent but softly spoken,about 500 people gathered to hear one of his final campaign speeches. Lee promised to run the country like a CEO and develop policies that promote “work-life balance”. His campaign promised a safe pair of hands to continue the work of the Moon era,but few of his most ardent supporters were moved beyond the obligatory cheers.
Yoon Hye-young,a 26-year-old education consultant at Lee’s rally,said she was not convinced he was going to be able to win on Wednesday night.
“I’m not sure if the president needs to be like a competitive CEO,as Lee claims,” she said. “But I do believe he would do good things for the country.”
In Ssangmun-dong,the Seoul suburb where the Netflix seriesSquid Game was filmed,local businesses have little faith in either candidate. This area of Seoul has struggled with the employment woes made famous by lead character Seong Gi-hun.
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Song Jeom-soon runs the fish shop now seen by more than 142 million people around the world,but that has done little to drive business back as inflation takes a toll on household spending.
“Right now,the whole country is faltering,and we need a good president,regardless of his regional upbringings,to unite us,” said Song.
Her neighbour Grace,who runs a fish ball and tempura stall laughed that she was “exhausted because this country is being run so well”.
“No,this country isn’t being run well. It’s getting harder to make our ends meet. After theSquid Game was aired,our flea market enjoyed transient popularity mostly from tourists,” she said.
“But as the COVID-19 pandemic has gotten worse in recent months,our market has gone back to the same-old,barely anyone strolling along this aisle in the daytime.”