Voters hit the polls in South Korea elections
SEOUL South Koreans went to the polls yesterday in crucial parliamentary elections that could determine whether President Yoon Suk Yeol will fall into a lame duck situation or be able to move his agenda forward with legislative support during the remaining three years in office.
As of 1pm, some 23.6 million, or 53.4 per cent, of the total 44.28 million eligible voters had cast their ballots, seven hours after voting began at 14,259 polling stations across the nation, according to the National Election Commission (NEC).
The turnout, which included part of the record 31.28 per cent turnout in last week's early voting, was 3.7 percentage points higher than at the same time in the previous elections four years ago. The voting was set to run until 6pm.
"The turnout on the main day of voting is lower than that of the 2020 elections. But as the early voting turnout was an all-time high this time, we cautiously expect that the final turnout may be higher than four years ago," an NEC official said.
The turnout for the parliamentary elections in 2020 stood at 66.2 per cent.
Up for grabs are 300 National Assembly seats.
Widespread expectations are that the main opposition Democratic Party (DP) would win more seats than the ruling People Power Party (PPP), with some even talking about the possibility of the broader opposition bloc taking more than 200 seats combined.
The quadrennial race carries extra weight for the ruling party as a failure to regain a majority could potentially render the Yoon administration a lame duck for the remaining three years of his single five-year term, ending in 2027.
The PPP has pleaded for voter support, saying the Yoon administration has been unable to push its reform agenda properly forward for the past two years due to the uncooperative parliament under opposition control.
"Please encourage voters to cast their ballots by using all your strength," PPP leader Han Donghoon said in a message to the ruling party's election candidates.
"A neck-and-neck race has played out in many constituencies so that an election victory could hinge on just hundreds of votes," he said.
The DP, on the other hand, has urged voters to pass stern judgment on what it calls the "incompetent" Yoon administration, accusing it of causing the economy and the livelihoods of the people to worsen seriously and mishandling a series of controversial issues for the past two years.
Many surveys taken before the blackout period, which began last Thursday, have shown that DP candidates were ahead of their PPP counterparts in many districts, including even in some PPP stronghold regions in the country's southeast, albeit within the margins of error.
What is also notable was the surprisingly high support that the Rebuilding Korea Party, newly launched by scandal-tainted former Justice Minister Cho Kuk, has garnered with calls for bringing an early end to the Yoon administration.
That could suggest the calls for passing judgment on the Yoon administration are getting through.
"The voter turnout is still lower than that recorded for the previous general elections. Please contact all of your acquaintances and tell them to vote. If you vote, we can win," DP leader Lee Jae-myung said on his Facebook page.
Should the broader opposition bloc win more than 200 seats in the 300-member National Assembly, it would give opposition parties a two-thirds majority strong enough to override presidential vetoes and even to impeach the president.
But some observers say the DP cannot anticipate a comfortable landslide victory because what the media has dubbed "shy" conservative voters can turn out in large numbers to cast their ballots, prodded by a sense of urgency.