South Korea in 2015: Battling to Set the Stage for Elections

The year 2015 featured real and metaphorical battles in South Korea: face-offs between the executive and the legislature saw President Park Geun-hye duel with the non-Park faction in the ruling Saenuri Party and fend off the opposition, whose alliance struggled with infighting and subsequent fractures. The government waged war against a health epidemic and exchanged artillery fire with North Korea at the Demilitarized Zone. The by-elections in April 2015 augur the political stage for pending elections in 2016 and 2017.