By Chung Min-uck
The voter turnout among people in their 20s and 30s, along with online campaigning and the so-called Ahn Cheol-soo factor, have become decisive factors in the Seoul mayoral election slated for Wednesday.
The majority of eligible voters in their 50s or older are considered conservative, whereas their counterparts in their 40s or younger are more liberal.
Campaign watchers say the majority of the latter leaned towards the liberals after the 1990s as the wealth gap between high- and low-income earners widened.
Rising tuition fees and the high youth unemployment also contributed to those in their 20s and 30s trending a liberal political ideology.
Many experts forecast the more young voters cast their ballots in the by-election, the more likely it is for Park Won-soon, the unified liberal candidate, to win the mayoral race, as they are the determinant of voter turnouts while the elderly are considered fixed votes. The critical turnout is 45 percent, they say.
Shin Yul, professor of political science at Myongji University in Seoul, argues that the magic number is 50 percent for Park to win over Na Kyung-won who is running on the ruling Grand National Party (GNP) ticket.
Polls say the competition between Park and Na is neck and neck.
“Forty five percent isn’t the critical turnout. I personally think it should be 50 percent or more,” said Shin.
“The turnout of the August free lunch referendum marked 27.3 percent. Among them, conservatives were about 22 to 23 percent,” the professor said.
“Let’s suppose that half of the eligible voters in Seoul actually show up in ballot boxes in the by-election. If we do the math based on the free lunch referendum, conservative voters, who are more likely to vote for Na, would be around 46 percent.”
Prof. Shin indicated that the GNP candidate would gain much more than 46 percent of support in the real election because some of the undecided voters and those who refused to give their preferred candidate to pollsters during public opinion surveys could vote for her. In this case, support for her would go up more than 50 percent.
“If this happens, then Park can’t win as his rate would be below 50 percent. So I think the critical turnout for the former civic group activist should be more than 50 percent,” said Shin.
The relatively low voter turnout in by-elections, as they are held on weekdays, could negatively affect the liberal candidate.
“The turnouts in by-elections have never reached 50 percent. The turnout of the Bundang-B district was 49.1 percent, even though those who answered they would surely turn up in surveys taken prior to the actual election was 68 percent,” added Shin.
The April by-election for the Bundang-B district had received a lot of attention and recorded unprecedented high voter turnout due to the showdown between the main opposition Democratic Party chairman Sohn Hak-kyu and former GNP Chairman Kang Jae-sup.
Prof. Shin argued that the situation is again less favorable for Park as Seoul covers a larger area than the Bundang-B district meaning the margin of error would be larger than the latter’s 20 percent. In a recent survey conducted by three major broadcasting companies, 65 percent answered they would vote in the mayoral race.
In turn, the liberal camp is putting great efforts to increase voter turnout among the younger generation.
The election committee for Park Won-soon has been upgrading its on-line campaigns gathering celebrities savvy of social media to capitalize on their influence on young voters.
Also last week, civic groups and labor unions held a press conference to demand paid leave for elections held during weekdays.