Semiconductor push into Honam splits party support along regional lines

Democratic Party rallies in Honam; People Power Party gains in Yeongnam

Ruling and opposition parties trade barbs over regional discrimination claims

Lee says historical investment gap makes current Honam focus 'a drop in the bucket'

Democratic Party of Korea Rep. Kim Hyeon-jeong and fellow Democratic Party lawmakers hold a press conference at the National Assembly's media room on Tuesday, denouncing the People Power Party's criticism of the government's semiconductor investment plan for the Honam region as regional disparagement and obstruction. [Yonhap]

By Jung Seok-jun, The Herald Business

Party support ratings have split sharply along regional lines since the government unveiled its semiconductor investment plan for the Honam region. The Democratic Party of Korea has seen its numbers rise in Gwangju and the Jeolla provinces, while the People Power Party has recorded a consolidation effect in the Yeongnam region. Both parties are escalating their rhetoric — the ruling camp emphasizing regional development, the opposition warning of regional division.

A Realmeter survey conducted July 25–26 on behalf of the Energy Economy Newspaper, polling 1,002 people aged 18 and older nationwide, showed the Democratic Party at 41 percent — up 0.9 percentage points from the previous week — and the People Power Party at 42 percent, down 0.3 percentage points.

Regional trends diverged sharply. Democratic Party support rose in Gwangju and Jeolla (up 9.2 percentage points), Daejeon, Sejong and Chungcheong (up 6.8 percentage points) and Seoul (up 4.7 percentage points), while falling 4.3 percentage points in Busan, Ulsan and South Gyeongsang Province. The People Power Party gained in Busan, Ulsan and South Gyeongsang (up 3.5 percentage points) and Daegu and North Gyeongsang Province (up 3.9 percentage points), but fell in Daejeon, Sejong and Chungcheong (down 10 percentage points), Gwangju and Jeolla (down 8.9 percentage points) and Seoul (down 6.7 percentage points).

Realmeter said the People Power Party's slight decline reflected defections in Seoul, the Chungcheong region and among moderate voters amid ongoing intraparty conflict over party leader Jang Dong-hyeok's future, offset by consolidation among conservative and core Yeongnam supporters. For the Democratic Party, the pollster said the Honam semiconductor cluster investment issue drove a rally among Gwangju and Jeolla voters and those in their 40s, lifting overall support.

North Gyeongsang Province Governor Lee Cheol-woo, Daegu Mayor-elect Choo Kyung-ho and People Power Party lawmakers from Daegu and North Gyeongsang Province hold a press conference at the National Assembly's media room on Monday to protest their region's exclusion from the plan to build a second national semiconductor cluster in the Gwangju and South Jeolla area. [Yonhap]

Political parties are working to consolidate their regional bases in line with shifting public opinion. Twenty-six People Power Party lawmakers with constituencies in Busan, Ulsan and South Gyeongsang Province held a joint press conference at the National Assembly's media room on Tuesday, criticizing the government for using the region "only as a power-generation base while excluding it from future industry investment — that is not balanced development but balanced discrimination."

People Power Party floor leader Jeong Jeom-sik said on Facebook that day it was "deeply regrettable" that the president had invoked "past discrimination between Yeongnam and Honam" and "comparisons of historically accumulated investment" to "drive a wedge between non-metropolitan regions."

About 70 Democratic Party lawmakers also held a press conference at the National Assembly's media room the same day, calling for an end to the neglect of Honam and the fulfillment of balanced national development. They accused the People Power Party of going too far in disparaging and obstructing the government's mega-project announcement.

Han Byung-do, the Democratic Party's acting party leader and floor leader, said at a floor strategy meeting on Tuesday that investment spanning the southwestern region as well as Chungcheong, Yeongnam, Gangwon Province and other parts of the country "will mark a new milestone in overcoming the Seoul-centric single-hub system and achieving balanced development."

President Lee Jae Myung views an AI semiconductor exhibit while listening to SK hynix CEO Kwak Noh-jung at a public briefing on the southwestern region's advanced industry development vision, held Tuesday at the Kim Dae-jung Convention Center in Gwangju. [Yonhap]

Cheong Wa Dae moved to contain the regional discrimination controversy. President Lee Jae Myung, presiding over a Cabinet meeting and emergency economic review session at Cheong Wa Dae on Tuesday, asked the public to understand the investment plan and acknowledged that "it is true that this particular announcement involves somewhat more investment in the Honam region." He added, however, that "compared with the historically accumulated volume of investment, it is no more than a drop in the bucket."

The president's job approval rating stood at 46.5 percent, down 0.2 percentage points from the previous week — a sixth consecutive weekly decline, though the pace of the drop slowed slightly. Realmeter attributed the continued slide to a prolonged controversy over the National Election Commission's mishandling of ballots, growing public distrust over economic hardships including a high exchange rate, high inflation and real estate market instability, and political clashes between the ruling and opposition parties over the plan to abolish prosecutors' supplementary investigative powers and the Honam semiconductor investment dispute.

The presidential approval poll carried a margin of error of plus or minus 2.0 percentage points at the 95 percent confidence level, with a response rate of 4.1 percent. The party support poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points at the 95 percent confidence level, with a response rate of 3.4 percent. Further details are available on the National Election Survey Deliberation Commission website.

mp1256@heraldcorp.com