[Editorial] Oh wins fifth term, but Seoul voters demand cooperation

People Power Party candidate Oh Se-hoon won a fifth term as Seoul mayor in Wednesday's local elections. In the Seoul Metropolitan Council race, Democratic Party candidates claimed 81 of the 118 seats (68.6 percent) while People Power Party candidates won 37 (31.4 percent). In the 25 Seoul district mayor contests, the Democratic Party won 17 (68 percent) and the People Power Party eight (32 percent). The message from Seoul voters is unmistakable. They chose Oh as mayor — sending a warning against unchecked dominance by the central government and the ruling party — while entrusting the Democratic Party with legislative and district-level administrative power to monitor and check a People Power Party mayor. In short, Seoul voters have issued a clear mandate: the city government and the central government, the mayor and the council and district offices, must work together.

Seoul voters have now elected Oh Se-hoon mayor an extraordinary five times. To hold public trust for that long is a remarkable record. It is also significant that he held the post in an election held just one year after a Democratic Party government took power, following the martial law declaration and impeachment of a People Power Party president. Yet his margin over the second-place candidate was barely one percentage point, and overall, slightly more voters did not support him than did. To be mayor for all Seoulites, Oh must embrace and represent even those who did not vote for him.

The government and the ruling party must read accurately what Seoul voters expressed through Oh's election: a warning against unilateral dominance in governance and legislation. Oh himself must take seriously the fact that the Democratic Party won nearly seven in 10 seats in the Seoul council and district mayor races. He should keep in mind that this result is a check on fears of one-sided city administration.

The challenges that the central government, the Seoul Metropolitan Government, the city council and district offices must tackle together — vertically and horizontally — are vast. Housing and real estate supply policy tops the list. The ruling and opposition parties have long prescribed different remedies on reconstruction, redevelopment, deregulation, speculation curbs, expanded public supply and high-density urban development, yet it has already been proven that no single approach solves the problem. Housing and real estate policy must not be approached through ideology. Public safety and transportation must not become fodder for political battles either. The Itaewon crowd crush, the recent Seosomun overpass collapse and the missing rebar discovered in the GTX-A Samsung station construction section all carry the same lesson: when the three-tier cooperative structure of central, metropolitan and local government breaks down, public safety is inevitably put at risk. Beyond that, every domain — from economic growth and employment to welfare, and from urban development to heritage preservation — requires social consensus spanning all levels of government. Seoul deserves bipartisan cooperation aimed at genuinely solving problems and building social cohesion, not political conflict driven by the pursuit of the next election.