[Politics X-File] Seoul Election 122 to 0 Real Story? ... Candidate No. 1's Dark History

② 2006 Local Elections, Disaster for Uri Party
Complete Defeat in Seoul Mayor, District Mayor, and City Council Elections
Worst Result in Ruling Party Election History

[Asia Economy Reporter Ryu Jeong-min]

Editor's Note‘Political X-File’ is a series that delivers ‘unprecedented stories’ recorded in the election results and incidents of Korean politics.

The May 31, 2006 4th simultaneous local elections revealed how severe the public sentiment chill was. It was a dark history for candidate number 1 that is unlikely to appear again in Korean elections. The ruling party at the time, Uri Party, received a devastating result in Seoul that no one had ever experienced before.

All candidates listed on the election posters as Uri Party candidates for Seoul mayor, district mayor, and city council member lost.

The Seoul mayoral election was a one-sided contest. Grand National Party candidate Oh Se-hoon won with 61.1% of the vote. Uri Party candidate Kang Geum-sil received only 27.3% of the vote.

The election premium of candidate number 1, given to the ruling party with the majority in the National Assembly, did not work. In all 25 districts of Seoul, Kang did not win a single district against Oh.

On June 1, 2022, officials are conducting vote counting at the 8th Nationwide Local Elections counting center set up at Eunpyeong Multipurpose Gymnasium in Eunpyeong-gu, Seoul. Photo by Moon Honam munonam@

This extended to the Seoul district mayor elections. In all 25 district mayor elections in Seoul, Grand National Party candidates won every single seat. All district mayor candidates under the Uri Party banner were defeated. The 25 to 0 result in Seoul district mayor elections was the first and last time this happened. No other local election has seen a 25 to 0 result in Seoul district mayor races.

Among Uri Party candidates, the Guro District mayor candidate performed best with 34.9% of the vote. Most candidates failed to even reach 30% of the vote. The Yongsan and Gangnam district mayor candidates remained at around 17-18% of the vote. It was a complete defeat without any chance to make a dent.

The dark clouds of the election extended to the Seoul city council elections. At that time, Seoul elected 96 local district city council members and 10 proportional representation city council members. Proportional representation seats were allocated based on party vote percentages. Local district city council members were elected based on individual candidate votes from citizens.

All 96 local district city council seats were won by Grand National Party candidates. All 96 candidates running under the Uri Party banner were defeated. Thus, from the Seoul mayor (1 seat), Seoul district mayors (25 seats), to Seoul local district city council members (96 seats), all 122 Uri Party candidates lost.

On June 1, 2022, officials are conducting vote counting at the 8th Nationwide Local Elections counting center set up at Eunpyeong Multipurpose Gymnasium in Eunpyeong-gu, Seoul. Photo by Moon Honam munonam@

The May 31 local elections served as a mid-term evaluation of the Participatory Government. After the devastating election results, the ruling party froze in shock. Looking back at Korean political history, there have been cases where a specific party achieved a landslide victory in the metropolitan area.

However, across both general and local elections, there has never been a case like the 2006 Seoul election where candidate number 1 failed to produce a single winner. Public sentiment effectively gave the ruling party a failing grade.

Jeong Dong-young, then chairman of the Uri Party, resigned the day after the election, saying, “I accept the public’s reprimand expressed in the local elections with gravity and humility.” The crushing defeat in the local elections triggered a strong aftershock that shook the political landscape.

Riding the momentum from the May 31 local elections, the Grand National Party succeeded in regaining power in the 2007 presidential election the following year.