South Korea Prepares For A Parliamentary Election In The Age Of Coronavirus

SOUTH KOREA

Curve Down, Polling Up

The first country swept up in the pandemic after the Chinese outbreak, South Korea has been a leader in combating the coronavirus.

Now, the East Asian country is preparing for voters to go to the polls in a parliamentary election on April 15. It’s a rare exception in the world these days – allowing a vote to go on.

The vote is crucial – it is expected to be the first hint as to who might replace President Moon Jae-in, whose term ends in two years. Presently, Moon’s liberal Democratic Party of Korea is ahead of the conservative United Future Party.

The Democrats adopted “winning the COVID-19 war” as its campaign slogan, Quartz reported. At first, they appeared to fumble their crisis response as the pandemic worsened, the National Interest wrote. Then they managed to flatten the curve – the pace of the increase in new cases – demonstrating competence.

“We were terrified several weeks ago, but thanks to the government’s handling of the coronavirus, we think we will do much better than we had previously thought,” an unnamed senior ruling party honcho said in an interview with Reuters.

The conservatives, moreover, have been on the ropes since their former standard-bearer, ex-President Park Geun-hye, was impeached four years ago, the Diplomat added.

But the president shouldn’t start counting chickens. Almost one-third of South Korean voters are politically independent and don’t necessarily vote along party lines.

“Good management of the coronavirus is good for the president and the government,” Gallup Korea Director Jeong Ji-yeon told Nikkei Asian Review. “But that does not necessarily mean that the governing party will win.”

The logistics of the election are expected to be a challenge.

Politicians haven’t been able to hold the big rallies and get-out-the-vote efforts that are a mainstay of South Korean elections, Voice of America wrote. Online efforts have taken over.

Election officials have made masks and gloves mandatory and pledged to regularly disinfect more than 14,000 polling stations and check voters’ temperatures before allowing them to cast ballots, National Public Radio reported. Anyone with a fever would vote in special booths. Others will be allowed to vote from hospitals.

The safeguards will allow individual’s stories of inspiration to emerge, like how a North Korean diplomat in London defected to the south and is the first former official from the north to run for a seat in parliament. If elected, Agence France-Presse pointed out, Thae Yong Ho would ironically represent Gangnam, the wealth Seoul neighborhood made famous by rapper Psy’s song “Gangnam Style.”

Public health emergencies need not stifle democracy. South Korea shows how a little determination and care – instead of authoritarian or partisan impulses – can go a long way.