The war hero Churchill lost, the military regime successor Roh Tae-woo won···the paradox of elections - 경향신문
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An analysis including the storming of the U.S. Capitol
On January 6, 2021, supporters of then U.S. President Donald Trump gathered in front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, waving the Stars and Stripes. They stormed the Capitol, threatened lawmakers, and damaged property. Reuters/Yonhap News
Elections are called ‘the flower of democracy’. Human will, effort, and planning alone cannot make a flower bloom. All kinds of unforeseen variables and coincidences intervene.
Elections are no different. New Zealand is a country where women actively participate in politics. In the 2020 general election, about half (48.3%) of all members of parliament were women. It is unlikely that the male establishment in New Zealand was friendly from the outset to expanding women's political rights. In 1869, Mary Ann Muller anonymously argued for the need for women's suffrage, initiating the discussion. In 1885, Kate Sheppard of the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) launched a large petition campaign. In 1893, a petition to amend the electoral law signed by 32,000 peopleequivalent to a quarter of New Zealand's adult white female populationwas submitted to parliament. The petition, 274ｍ long and weighing 7㎏, led to the world's first women's right to vote.
The dynamics of the male-dominated parties of the time also played a role in the bill's passage. The Liberal Party, then the majority, took a relatively progressive stance, yet feared that women's participation in politics could unsettle its advantage. The petition was brought before parliament by a conservative-leaning lawmaker who sought to overturn his weakness with women's votes. The Liberals, lukewarm about women's suffrage, shifted their position as analysis suggested conservative rural women would support them. The world's first women's suffrage was born from the convergence of women's tenacious efforts and ‘political serendipity’.
The 274-meter-long petition to amend the electoral law that New Zealand's Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) submitted to parliament. Provided by Book Trigger
<Decisive Elections> looks at 18 elections over the past century that changed the course of world history. It explores why voters chose as they did, and how parties and politicians responded or looked away. In doing so, it points out that the relationship among elections, community, and democracy is not linear. The view of the author, who worked as a parliamentary aide and a journalist, is that “elections can sustain democracy but can also kill it.” He also explains that an election is not the drama of a particular politician or party, but rather “an event in which social cleavages surface at a specific time and place.”
What mattered to voters was often interests rather than ideology. At the victory celebration on July 21, 1945, the Conservative Party of Winston Churchill, the war hero who drew loud cheers, suffered a crushing defeat in the general election whose ballots were counted five days later, losing roughly half its seats. British voters handed victory to Clement Attlee of Labour, who was called the ‘Invisible Man’ for his lack of charisma. As World War II eroded class barriers in Britain, a longing for a welfare state was taking root. Labour's manifesto, which emphasized ‘from cradle to grave,’ sold as many as 1.5 million copies, but Churchill kept invoking the ‘glory of the British Empire’ even on the campaign trail. Voters turned away from a war hero seen as indifferent to the practical matter of making a living.
On February 25, 1988, at the National Assembly building in Yeouido, Seoul, Roh Tae-woo said, “Democracy is the just value that makes humans truly human,” as he took office as president. It was an incongruous scene, because he had been a key figure, together with his predecessor Chun Doo-hwan, in the military coup. How should we understand the irony that Roh Tae-woo, the successor to the military regime, won the presidency despite the aspirations of citizens who had taken to the streets against the Chun government? While the split between opposition leaders Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung was a major factor in the result, the author also notes that Roh's appeal to the middle classframed as the ‘Great Era of Ordinary People’was effective. The point is that “the middle class wanted democratization, but not to the extent that democratization would upend the economy.”
Two elections in the United States in the 2000s prompt the question of what the ‘rules’ of democracy are. America's electoral institutions are famous for being complex and irrational. There is little momentum to change the long-standing system, but resistance is strong. The peculiar rules produced a crisis in the 2000 presidential election between Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore. In Florida, where the margin between the two was under 0.5%, state law triggered a recount, but disputes erupted over how many places to recount, how quickly to finish, and how to judge invalid ballots. The differing powers of the federal government, local governments, the U.S. Supreme Court, and the state supreme court collided. An unprecedented 36 days of confusion ended with a joint session of the House and Senate formally certifying the result. Some Democrats objected, but Vice President Gore, who presided as chair, calmly conducted the proceedings and accepted the outcome.
The American attitude of ‘fight within the rules, but accept the result’ was emptied of substance by supporters of Donald Trump who, alleging election fraud, stormed the Capitol in 2021. In June 2021, Trump said, “We won twice. We can win a third time,” and began preparing to run again, and he eventually won in 2024 and became president. In his campaign, he reached beyond traditional party organizations to draw in outside groups led by wealthy figures like Elon Musk. Just ten rich individuals provided 44% of the funds raised for Trump. The author regards the 2024 U.S. prsidential election as “a turning point in 21st-century politics.”
Elections are not the last battlefield where good and evil, democrats and dictators, face off, but arenas where ‘real-world politics’ unfolds intensely. Voters cast ballots based on the standard of what can be delivered to ‘me’ in concrete terms, beyond values such as freedom, democracy, and equality. When established parties fail to answer, dictators or populists who promise ‘clear and forceful solutions’ gain momentum. In 1933, the Nazis in Germany did so; in 1994, so did Silvio Berlusconi in Italy. In the 21st century, far-right forces such as Donald Trump, France's National Rally, and Alternative for Germany (AfD) have performed strongly in elections. In the conclusion, the author writes that “democracy advances in a zigzag.” Is that sentence the product of fierce will, or the result of cool observation? After reading a book that neatly organizes electoral and political situations that can be complex, each reader will likely reach a different judgment.
