Pandemic bounce for South Korea’s leader
THE party of South Korea’s president, Moon Jae-in, was projected to win a solid victory in a nationwide general election yesterday after masked voters thronged to polling booths.
The turnout of 65.1 per cent was higher than any parliamentary elections in the country’s democratic history, in what was widely viewed as a referendum on President Moon’s handling of the Covid-19 crisis. The virus exploded in South Korea in February but has since been brought under control.
Early exit polls suggested a strong show of confidence in his administrations’ strategy of “trace, test, treat” which has held the number of infections at just over 10,500 and the death toll low at 229.
Mr Moon’s progressive, Leftist camp was on track to secure up to 177 seats in the 300-member parliament, according to major TV networks, which reported that the main conservative party was also expected to win as many as 131 seats.
The pandemic appears to have been an unexpected boon for Mr Moon whose approval ratings were languishing at 41 per cent in January over his government’s lacklustre economic performance. Following global praise for his pandemic response, the president’s popularity had rebounded to 56 per cent by last week.
The coronavirus pandemic had eclipsed Mr Moon’s flagging efforts to make peace with North Korea and create a more equitable domestic economy, argued Andray Abrahamian, a visiting scholar at George Mason University Korea.
“He’s under pressure on both those fronts and I think the coronavirus issue has just swept those problems away,” he told The Daily Telegraph.
About 14,000 polling stations were disinfected in preparation for voters who were obliged to wear masks, line up three feet apart and have their temperatures checked and hands sanitised before entering. Plastic gloves were distributed to all.