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| A voter casts his ballot for the Seoul mayoral by-election at a polling station in Seoul Station, Friday, the first day of the two-day early voting period for the April 7 by-elections. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul |
By Jung Da-min
Both the ruling and main opposition parties have claimed the high early voting turnout in Wednesday's by-elections would work to their advantages, helping their candidates win the Seoul and Busan mayoral races.
While the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) said the high early voting turnout showed the DPK supporters' solidarity and high participation in favor of its candidate Park Young-sun, the main opposition People Power Party (PPP) said people would have voted for its candidate Oh Se-hoon to judge the policy failures of the ruling bloc.
Such claims were made after the early voting was conducted, Friday and Saturday, with record-high numbers of voters participating and the turnout coming to 20.54 percent. About 2.49 million out of 12.16 million eligible voters across the country cast their ballots in the mayoral by-elections as well as in smaller regional votes during the two-day early voting period, according to the National Election Commission (NEC).
The early voting turnout for the mayoral by-elections of the country's two major cities Seoul and Busan recorded 21.95 percent and 18.65 percent, respectively. When eyes are especially on who would be the mayor of the capital, which is considered a barometer of public opinion for next year's presidential election, the voting turnout in Jongno District, called Korea's No. 1 political avenue, recorded 24.44 percent, the highest among the election districts in the capital city.
Political experts said it remains to be seen how the high turnout will work for each party, without knowing other undisclosed factors such as age groups and regional origins of the voters, which could indicate voters' political orientations.
"The ruling party could say the high early voting turnout is advantageous to them, as it has strong organizational capability to mobilize its enthusiastic supporters. For example, the ruling party holds 101 seats out of the total 109 in the Seoul Metropolitan Council, and 24 out of 25 district offices are headed by the ruling party," said Shin Yul, a political science and diplomacy professor at Myongji University.
"As enthusiastic supporters would cast their ballots under any circumstances, the elections results would differ according to the overall turnout of the elections. If the overall turnout is not that high and records about 35 percent or lower, their ballots would have a huge impact on the overall results, but if the overall turnout is higher than 50 percent, their ballots cannot be a game changer."
Shin and other political watchers said they expect the overall turnout could also record over 50 percent, setting a record in the country's by-elections history.
Cha Jae-won, a professor of special affairs at the Catholic University of Pusan, said more people are expected to participate in the by-elections as they consider this year's by-elections a skirmish ahead of next year's presidential election.
"High turnout for early voting used to work to the liberal bloc's advantage, as young people, who have to go to work on the by-election day if falls on a weekday, tend to participate in the early voting, but the situation seems different this time when many young people are showing disappointment with the ruling bloc's recent policy failures," Cha said. "The high turnout for the early voting of the April 7 by-elections seems to be reflecting such public opinion."
Political commentator Park Sang-byoung said more voters are expected to participate in the April 7 by-elections when they feel their votes are highly equivalent to the election results amid the fierce competition between rival parties, especially less than a year ahead of the presidential election.
