By Kang Hyun-kyung
The voter turnout for Wednesday’s presidential election was the highest since 1997, tentatively marking 75.8 percent, according to the National Election Commission (NEC).
Turnouts were especially high in the southern Gyeongsang and Jeolla provinces, the respective strongholds of the ruling Saenuri Party and the main opposition Democratic United Party (DUP), respectively.
This shows that the east-west divide, a phenomenon that has been apparent for several decades in elections, is still a major factor.
Pollsters said the tight two-way race between ruling party’s Park Geun-hye and Moon Jae-in of the DUP until the polling day prompted their supporters to come out en masse.
The voter turnout for the 2007 election stood at just 63 percent and the then Grand National Party (now Saenuri Party) candidate Lee Myung-bak consistently led by a wide margin. This discouraged supporters of Chung Dong-young, who ran in the election on the Democratic Party (now DUP) ticket to cast their ballots.
In 2002, the turnout was 70.8 percent.
The turnout this year was good from 6 a.m. when voting began and continued until it ended at 6 p.m., reaching a peak at 1 p.m. of 45.3 percent, an increase of more than 10 percentage points from noon when it stood at 34.9 percent.
Analysts said the record-high turnout was a reflection that both younger and older voters headed to polling stations.