Rebellion by old voters

By Kim Tong-hyung

Park Geun-hye’s presidential triumph over liberal rival Moon Jae-in is an outcome worth dissecting, discussing and debating. The simplest explanation comes in form of the number 89.9.

That is the mind-boggling percentage of voters in their 50s who braved freezing temperatures to appear at polling places across Korea Wednesday, enabling older voters to prevail in an election that exposed what seems an unbridgeable divide between generations.

``I was surprised to see the lines around the polling station forming several circles. It seemed as if half the people were older than me and the other half were younger than me. The air was very intense, even for a presidential election,’’ said Lee Sang-dong, a 41-year-old resident in southern Seoul, who said this was his third presidential vote to participate in.

``Increased voter participation usually means that more young people were going to the booths, but as isolated as my personal experience was, I had a feeling right away that it might not be the case this time. It seemed like a title defense boxing match between different generations. You could actually hear some old people grumbling between themselves that the young ones were showing up.’’

Another 53-year-old voter, who didn’t want to be named, said she wasn’t particularly impressed with the Saenuri Party candidate. She nonetheless made it her personal mission to vote for her and persuade as many people as she could to do the same.

``I can’t let the country fall back in the hands of Communist sympathizers, especially when North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is developing nuclear weapons and missiles,’’ she said. The woman said she suspected a link between Moon and Lee Jeong-hee of the leftist Unified Progressive Party (UPP), who gave Park an earful at presidential debates before withdrawing from the race at the last minute. So perhaps Lee’s verbal attacks on Park hurt her less than it did Moon by galvanizing conservative voters and stoking their sense of urgency.

Comments on online message boards and social media, where young people are more visible, the morning after the vote were full of bile and confirmed the election has driven a wedge between the age groups deeper than ever,

One Facebook user posted about feeling the urge to ``shoot’’ older commuters on the subway. Another suggested old people relocate to an independent country in the southeast Gyeongsang regions, where Park’s support was predominant.

Moon’s mistake was deciding to supercharge the generation game in the hope that it would play to his advantage. The Democratic United Party (DUP) nominee is left to rue a missed opportunity as a frail economy, eroding living standards and increasing social dysfunction had suggested conditions were ripe for replacing the political party in power.

Park, the daughter of slain military strongman Park Chung-hee, and a Saenuri Party veteran, heavily depended on older voters, who remember her father as an orchestrator of the country’s impressive industrialization process and are more willing to look away from his bloody record of civilian suppression.

Moon, a former human rights lawyer once arrested for protesting against the late Park’s dictatorship, was favored among voters under-40 who found Park’s political persona outdated and somewhat disturbing.

It was Moon more than Park who had attempted to cultivate an ``us against them’’ mentality, concentrating his campaign strategy on encouraging participation from younger voters, permanently poorer bets to show up on polling day than their parents. Combating youth unemployment, lowering college tuition and eliminating the gender divide at work and home were key themes in his rallies.

He couldn’t care less about conservative voters being put off by his glorification of the ``Sunshine Policy’’ of engaging North Korea, pushed under the former Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun governments, which provided the regime with economic assistance in hopes of softening its combative behavior. The approach now looks like a failure after a series of nuclear tests and advancement in long-range missile capabilities by the North.

People at Moon’s campaign headquarters were euphoric after the National Election Commission (NEC) announced a higher-than-expected voter turnout of 75.8 percent shortly after the polls closed on 6 p.m.

His campaign strategists had predicted that the Moon would have a puncher’s chance against Park if participation is measured north of 70 percent, with the possibility of an upset eliminated by anything lower than that.

However, jubilation quickly turned to gloom as it became apparent within a couple of hours that Park would finish the night as the victor.

This was an unusual election in the way that the spike in voter turnout, compared to 65.8 percent of the previous presidential poll five years ago, seemed to be driven more by middle-age or older people than those in their 20s and 30s. The near-90 percent participation rate of voters in their 50s was a stark contrast to the 65.8 percent managed by voters in their 20s.

Perhaps, Moon could have avoided his mistake it he had actually listened to himself talk about the challenges presented by the low birthrate and a population aging in dog years, issues which he repeatedly speechified during his campaign push.

The number of voters in their 20s and 30s accounted for 48.3 percent of the electorate in 2002, when the late Roh, Moon’s political mentor, defeated conservative rival Lee Hoi-chang in the battle for Cheong Wa Dae. However, the proportion of this age group dropped by 10 percentage points to 38.3 percent in this election. During the same span, the proportion of voters over the age of 50 rose by 29.3 percent to 40 percent.

While the population structures are changing rapidly, some things remain the same: Older voters will stick with the incumbent, while younger ones will sympathize with the opposition.

Park garnered support of only 33.7 percent from voters in their 20s and 33.1 percent from voters in their 30s. However, she swept 62.3 percent of voters in their 50s and 72.3 percent from those over 60.