Park Geun-hye wins South Korea’s presidential election
The Washington Post’s overview of the election results, with good background.
Officially completed my civic duty
Absentee ballot is in the mail.
Far and Away
A University of Nebraska-Lincoln graduate going into her second year teaching English in South Korea on a Fulbright Scholarship. Also an aspiring foreign correspondent, closet geek and proud to have a Minnesotan accent.
South Koreans go to the polls today to elect a new president in a contest that’s steeped in history. Running for the ruling New Frontier Party is former President Park Chung-hee’s daughter Park Geun-hye, whose savvy leadership has restored the political fortunes of South Korea’s conservatives. Running for the main opposition Democratic United party is Moon Jae-in, a former human rights lawyer who was once arrested as a student activist during the older Park’s regime and later became chief of staff to the late president Roh Moo-hyun.
As Korea University professor Hahm Sung-deuk tells the Los Angeles Times’ Barbara Demick, “This is like George W. Bush versus Al Gore. You have conservatives against liberals and the animosity between them is very strong.” In addition to the two candidates’ differences on economic and social issues, the contest has been defined to a large degree as a vote on the legacy of Park Chung-hee, whose authoritarian regime was guilty of human rights abuses but is also credited with presiding over South Korea’s rapid industrialization and escape from abject poverty.
The Hankyoreh reports that voter turnout appears to be heavy, with the National Election Commission forecasting that 70% of eligible voters will cast ballots before the polls close at 6 p.m. The Chosun Ilbo reports that the number of eligible voters in this year’s election totals 40.46 million, up 7.5% from the 2007 presidential election. Yonhap says that the race is too close to call, with recent voter surveys showing the two candidates running neck and neck within the margin of error.
Rock the Vote
Today is election day in South Korea, where people choose their new representatives in parliament. I don’t have a whole lot to say about that, but there are a few interesting observations I’ve made about Korean elections.
First of all, people get the day off on election day. I have no school, my homestay dad doesn’t have to go into the office - all so that people have basically no excuse for not voting. Which is a pretty neat concept in my opinion.
I definitely remember my parents having to rush into our town hall before work to cast their ballots in the morning, or rush home from work early to get their vote in before the place closed. This eliminates some of the major obstacles to getting the vote out.
Also, apparently it’s illegal for media outlets and candidates to conduct public opinion polls for a week before the election. Having taken a high-level political science/media course my senior year, I know how detrimental it can be to have dozens upon dozens of polls and percentages and “slight leads” flashed into the face of the public constantly in the run-up to an election. So I like this idea too.
Supposedly it’s a pretty close race between the ruling party and the main opposition party for control of the parliament, so we’ll see how it goes.
Leftist wins Seoul mayoral race
A leftist lawyer with a long background espousing radical causes won a decisive victory Wednesday in an election for mayor of Seoul that has serious implications for policies in dealing with North Korea.
