Millions turn out to vote

IN A surprisingly high turnout, millions of South Korean voters wore masks and moved slowly between lines of tape at polling stations yesterday to elect lawmakers in the shadows of the spreading coronavirus.

The government resisted calls to postpone the parliamentary elections billed as a mid-term referendum on President Moon Jae-in, who enters the final two years of his single five-year term grappling with a historic public health crisis that is unleashing massive economic shock.

While South Korea’s electorate is deeply divided along ideological and generational lines and regional loyalties, surveys showed growing support for Moon and his liberal party, reflecting the public’s approval of an aggressive test-and-quarantine programme so far credited for lower fatality rates for Covid-19 compared to China, Europe and North America.

Initial surveys of voters leaving the polls conducted by TV stations indicated that Moon’s Democratic Party and a satellite party it created to win proportional representative seats would comfortably combine for a majority in the 300-seat National Assembly.

The long lines that snaked around public offices and schools followed record-high participation in early voting held on Friday and Saturday, and defied expectations of low turnout to minimise social contact.

Duct tape or stickers marked a metre of physical distancing from nearby streets to ballot booths.