Xenophobic voters shun ruling party

By Lee Tae-hoon

Many people against multiculturalism avoided casting votes for the governing Saenuri Party and the minor opposition New Progressive Party in Wednesday’s National Assembly elections on fears of having a nationalized citizen as a legislator.

Few hesitated to express their deep disappointment in the two parties’ support for non-Koreans and Korean nationals with multicultural backgrounds. They argued that the appalling recent murder in Suwon by a Korean-Chinese man reveals the side effects destroying the “homogeneity of Korean society.”

The two parties named Philippine-born Jasmine Lee and Pak No-ja, a Russian-born professor at the University of Oslo in Norway, on their list of candidates for proportional representative seats.

“I just cast my vote for the sake of the nation and the race,” a blogger posted Wednesday on Internet forum “Against Multiculturalism Policy.”

“Many people have lined up to vote in my town. Of course, the two foreigners will not get in.”

Another blogger, identified as “Multiculturalism means multiple races,” urged other voters to avoid casting ballots for political parties that have been supportive of Korea becoming a multicultural society.

“I cast my vote early by excluding parties eager to embrace a multiracial, multicultural society from my choice,” he said. “The Saenuri Party went insane. Don’t ever cast a vote for it.”

The blogger said he filed a complaint against the conservative party for placing Lee, secretary-general of non-profit organization Sharing Water Drops, 15th on its list of proportional representatives.

“It will just be a matter of time before East Asians make up the half of the population,” he argued.

A blogger, indentified as “inferno,” called for a rise in nationalism, saying the Saenuri Party has given up its conservative doctrine.

“I’m a conservative, but I refuse to vote for the Saenuri Party because it has become a load of trash that no longer deserves to be labeled conservative,” he said.

“Now is time for us to prepare for the rebirth of true conservatism in Korea.”

The blogger said he and members of the Alliance for Eliminating Crimes by Foreigners were planning to stage a rally today or Friday in protest of promoting multiculturalism in front of the Government Complex in Gwacheon, Gyeonggi Province.

Numerous bloggers also expressed their deep concern over the promotion of multiculturalism, threatening to shun political parties that overlook problems created by foreigners on messages that they posted on the official website of Cheong Wa Dae.

“As you know Korea is a country with good security,” a blogger named Lee Hyung-in wrote. “If foreign criminal rings come to Korea and stay here as a hideout, Korea will be a playground for foreign criminals.”

Bae Jin-a, a kindergarten teacher, said that politicians are discriminating their own countrymen for the sake of giving more incentives to foreigners.

Bae said she discovered that the government subsidizes fees for kindergartens for families with a multicultural background regardless of their income level.

“They seem to believe it is obligatory for us to treat them as special because they are foreigners. Some do not take their children home even though they are not working and at home,” she said. “I don’t understand why the government fully pays for the education for all multicultural families, including the ones owning many apartments and lots of land.”

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