Party Analysis: The People Power Party (South Korea)
Testing the limits of a conservative restoration
South Korea’s People Power Party (PPP) was meant to be the vehicle for conservative renewal. Formed in 2020 through the merger of the Liberty Korea Party and a cluster of smaller right-wing forces, it sought to put distance between itself and the scandals, factionalism, and authoritarian residues that had crippled the right after the 2017 impeachment of President Park Geun-hye. For a moment, that ambition appeared achievable. The election of Yoon Suk Yeol in 2022 ended five years of liberal rule and returned conservatives to the presidency.
Yet by the end of 2025, the PPP finds itself back in opposition, bruised by impeachment, internal purges, and declining public trust. Yoon’s removal from office in April 2025 - following a failed declaration of martial law four months earlier - did not merely end a presidency. It exposed the fragility of the conservative project itself. Today, the PPP holds 108 seats in the 300-member National Assembly, trailing the Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), and polls at roughly 24 per cent nationally: diminished from its post-impeachment peak, but still the principal opposition force ahead of the 2028 legislative elections.
The party continues to champion economic deregulation, a hard line on North Korea, close alignment with the United States, and socially conservative values. But the question it now faces is no longer whether it can return to power quickly, but whether it can do so without repeating the failures that brought its last experiment in conservative governance to such an abrupt end.
Why the Party Exists
The PPP emerged from the wreckage of conservative implosion. The impeachment of Park Geun-hye in 2017 shattered the legitimacy of the Liberty Korea Party and fragmented the right into feuding camps. That collapse coincided with the rise of Moon Jae-in’s liberal administration, which pursued engagement with North Korea, expanded labour and gender protections, and framed conservatism as both morally tainted and historically obsolete.
For many voters - and elites - this combination proved unsettling. Economic stagnation, persistent youth unemployment, rising housing costs, and a perception of progressive overreach created space for conservative realignment. The 2020 merger that produced the United Future Party (renamed the People Power Party later that year) was an attempt to consolidate anti-communist hardliners, market liberals, and social conservatives into a single electoral machine capable of resisting what they saw as an increasingly ideological liberal state.
Yoon Suk Yeol’s emergence as the party’s standard-bearer accelerated this process. A former prosecutor-general with no deep roots in party politics, Yoon embodied outsider credibility and anti-corruption zeal at a moment when Moon-era scandals had eroded liberal authority. His candidacy allowed the PPP to pivot away from Park-era baggage while mobilising voters anxious about national security, relations with Pyongyang, and perceived “anti-state” activism at home. In short, the PPP exists because South Korean conservatism needed a reset - and because a substantial minority of voters still wanted one.
What the Party Has Achieved
The PPP’s clearest success came in 2022. Yoon’s narrow presidential victory - secured with 48.6 per cent of the vote - ended five years of progressive control and was followed by strong conservative performances in local elections, particularly in provincial assemblies and major municipalities. For a brief period, it appeared that the right had not only recovered, but modernised.
In office, the Yoon administration moved quickly to reverse key Moon-era policies. Nuclear power was rehabilitated as a central pillar of the energy mix, with targets set to raise its share of electricity generation to 34.6 per cent by 2036. Greenbelt restrictions were loosened to boost housing supply. On foreign policy, Seoul pursued closer trilateral coordination with Washington and Tokyo, culminating in the 2023 Camp David summit and a more explicit alignment against North Korean and Chinese pressure.
Yet these achievements were constrained by institutional reality. The PPP never controlled the National Assembly, and legislative gridlock proved chronic: by mid-2024, fewer than a third of government-backed bills had passed. Economic gains were uneven, inflation climbed, and scandals involving the president’s wife corroded public confidence. The 2024 legislative elections reflected this discontent, with the PPP falling to 108 seats - down from 121 in 2020.
The decisive rupture came in December 2024. Yoon’s abortive declaration of martial law - swiftly overturned by parliament - triggered impeachment, a leadership purge within the party, and a snap presidential defeat in 2025. Since then, the PPP has focused on internal damage control: expelling pro-Yoon hardliners, investigating alleged links to the Unification Church, and attempting to reassert a reformist conservative identity from opposition.
What Success Would Look Like
For the PPP, success now means rehabilitation before restoration. In the medium term, this requires unifying a fractured conservative base and contesting the next presidential election without the toxic legacy of Yoonism. The party’s strategic vision centres on economic revival amid demographic crisis - South Korea’s fertility rate stands at just 0.72 - through deregulation, expanded nuclear and semiconductor investment, and labour-market flexibility.
On security, the party continues to favour maximal deterrence against North Korea, with some figures openly discussing indigenous nuclear capabilities. Socially, it aims to roll back progressive legislation on gender and labour that conservatives argue has deepened generational divides and constrained growth. In foreign policy, success would involve entrenching the U.S. alliance, sustaining rapprochement with Japan, and resisting Chinese economic leverage.
Crucially, the PPP also needs to broaden its electoral coalition. Leaders such as Han Dong-hoon have argued for a more technocratic, anti-corruption conservatism capable of winning urban voters, rather than relying on regional strongholds alone. Ultimate success would be a stable governing coalition after 2028 - one that restores conservative credibility without reviving the authoritarian reflexes that proved so costly in 2024.
Electoral Rules and Strategic Constraints
South Korea’s electoral system both cushions and constrains the PPP. The mixed-member model - 254 single-member districts elected by first-past-the-post and 46 proportional seats - reinforces regionalism while preserving a two-party duopoly. This structure reliably benefits the PPP in its Yeongnam heartlands, where it routinely clears 50 per cent of the vote, but leaves it structurally weak in liberal bastions such as Honam.
Proportional thresholds encourage tactical behaviour, including the creation of satellite parties, as seen in 2024 when the PPP’s affiliate secured additional list seats. But because only 15 per cent of seats are allocated proportionally, the system ultimately rewards consolidation over fragmentation. High turnout - 67 per cent in 2024, the highest in three decades - has tended to mobilise younger, urban voters against the PPP, exacerbating gender and generational gaps.
Presidential elections, decided by plurality, can favour outsider candidates and protest coalitions, as Yoon’s 2022 victory demonstrated. Yet snap elections punish incumbents harshly, and the PPP’s collapse to 36 per cent in 2025 underscores the volatility this creates. Unless the party can manage internal discipline and expand beyond its regional base, electoral mechanics will continue to cap its ambitions.
How Critics See It
To its opponents, the PPP represents continuity masquerading as reform. Liberals and progressives depict it as an elitist party tethered to authoritarian legacies, overly deferential to Washington, and indifferent to social pluralism. Its dominance in Yeongnam is framed as evidence of regional cronyism, with critics noting that more than half of its lawmakers hail from just two provinces.
The Yoon years intensified these critiques. Allegations of prosecutorial overreach, selective anti-corruption enforcement, and economic mismanagement - particularly during the 2024 inflation spike - undermined the party’s reformist claims. The martial law episode proved especially damaging, reviving memories of 1980s authoritarianism and prompting accusations of a “self-coup” from opposition leaders.
Social policy remains another fault line. The party’s resistance to feminist reforms and its stance on military service have alienated young women in particular, while its reluctance to issue a full apology for the martial law crisis has reinforced perceptions of democratic ambivalence. Even centrist critics warn that unless the PPP decisively breaks with its hardline fringes, it risks prioritising ideological purity over governability.
How It May Be Remembered
The People Power Party’s long-term legacy remains unresolved. If it successfully reforms after 2025 - emerging as a pragmatic conservative force capable of managing demographic decline, geopolitical pressure, and economic transition - it may be remembered as the steward of post - Cold War conservatism in East Asia, credited with energy diversification and strategic realignment in an era of U.S. - China rivalry.
But the shadow of Yoon Suk Yeol looms large. His downfall risks fixing the PPP in historical memory as a party that squandered a rare opportunity for renewal - rising on anti-corruption rhetoric only to fall through overreach and internal division. Like earlier conservative formations after Park Chung-hee, it could fade as a transient backlash to progressive dominance, recalled more for deepening gender and regional divides than for governing effectively.
Whether the PPP becomes a durable pillar of South Korean democracy or a cautionary episode will depend less on its ideology than on its capacity for restraint. In a political system shaped by strong presidents and fragile trust, survival may ultimately hinge on learning when not to use power - even when it is available.