Spring onions off menu as polls loom
Vegetables banned from polling stations after Yoon ‘reasonable price’ gaffe
As South Korea gears up for pivotal parliamentary elections tomorrow, voters find themselves navigating a peculiar ban forbidding them from taking spring onions to polling stations.
The restriction comes amid a growing wave of political discontent, as skyrocketing vegetable prices and other economic challenges plague the nation.
Most opinion polls have conservative President Yoon Sukyeol’s ruling People Power Party locked in an uphill battle with the liberal opposition Democratic Party of Korea and its allies for control of the 300-seat parliament in tomorrow’s elections.
A record-breaking turnout during advance voting last Friday and Saturday is a reflection of the electorate’s heightened engagement in the polls, seen as a midterm referendum on Yoon’s leadership.
The president himself voted alone in the southern city of Busan on Friday, a departure from a tradition in which presidential couples typically cast their ballots together in front of television cameras.
Yoon’s wife Kim Keon-hee has remained out of the public eye since allegations surfaced in November that she received a Dior handbag as a gift.
Traditionally, concerns over North Korea’s nuclear threat have galvanised conservative voters.
However, in a notable shift, economic woes – surging vegetable prices, in particular – have taken centre stage, as the government’s perceived failure to address the issue has fuelled resentment among voters.
The frustrations have been compounded by authorities’ handling of the prolonged doctors’ strike and the allegations surrounding the first lady – controversies that have further eroded public trust.
The onion ban at voting stations stemmed from a television appearance Yoon made on March 18 that showed him holding up a bundle of spring onions costing 875 won (HK$5) – a discounted, temporary price offered thanks to a government subsidy – and insisting: “I’ve been to lots of markets, and I would say 875 won is a reasonable price.”
For weeks, the average retail price of spring onions – a common ingredient in Korean cuisine – has hovered around the 3,000-4,000 won level, reflecting some of the highest prices in years.
Yoon’s throwaway comment drew voters’ ire and has created a mini-crisis for his ruling party, as candidates from the main liberal opposition began bringing spring onions to election rallies and accusing the president of being out of touch with reality.
And it is not just spring onions. Produce prices in March were 20 per cent higher year on year, with apples up by nearly 90 per cent – marking the largest one-year jump since 1980.
South Korea’s National Election Commission said on Saturday it had answered “no” to a query about whether voters could take spring onions to polling stations as a gesture of protest against the government’s failure to tame food inflation.
Anyone who does bring the vegetable with them in protest will be asked to leave it outside, according to the commission. “Carrying spring onions into polling stations as a form of protest is prohibited due to its potential to influence voters and disrupt the environment necessary for fair and peaceful voting,” a spokeswoman for the commission said.
Onions bought as part of regular grocery shopping were exempt from the ban, she said, with on-site election officials to judge voters’ motivations for having the vegetable on a case-by-case basis.
The commission’s directive prompted a flurry of ridicule online.
“What about chives? Are they permissible?” wrote one user of an online news platform.
Others posted pictures on social media of shopping bags featuring key rings shaped like spring onions and T-shirts emblazoned with pictures of the vegetable.
The intensified pre-election political bickering has ensnared another unexpected casualty, too: popular televised weekly song contest King of Mask Singer.
A special episode, initially scheduled to commemorate the MBC show’s ninth anniversary, was postponed until after the elections over fears of it being associated with a fringe opposition party whose ballot number happens to be nine.
The spectacle was set to feature the theme song from 1979 Japanese animated classic Galaxy Express 999.
But concerns surfaced among MBC authorities that this could be construed as an endorsement of the Rebuilding Korea Party, which shares the same ballot number.