According to a recent poll taken by KSOI at the behest of the Kyunghyang Shinmun, some 70.6 percent of eligible voters in the southwestern Honam region (i.e., the Jeolla provinces) disagreed with the statement, “I will never vote for the Grand National Party’s candidate.”
Or, in other words, 70 percent of Honam voters said they could, in fact, vote for a GNP candidate.
This result was particularly strong in Jeollabuk-do, among voters under 30, among highly-educated voters, among high-income earners and among students.
Likewise, only 40.9 percent of voters said they would support the candidate of parties that spoke for the Honam region. Some 58.7 percent of those surveyed disagreed. This result, meanwhile, was particularly strong among voters in Gwangju, voters in their 30s, those in their 30s, the highly educated, high income earners and white-collar workers.
78.8 percent of those surveyed said they would base their votes in the upcoming presidential election on people, not parties.
In terms of party support, 19.4 percent said they supported the Democratic Party, 13.8 percent said they supported the GNP (!), 11.3 percent supported the Uri Party, 6.1 percent supported the Democratic Labor Party, 2.5 percent supported the breakaway faction of the Uri Party led by Kim Han-gil and Kang Bong-gyun, and 2.2 percent supported the Uri Party group led by former Justice Minister Chun Jung-bae. Some 42.5 percent, however, said they didn’t have a party they support or didn’t respond.
Some 56.5 percent said they hoped a new figure would appear in the upcoming presidential race.
KSOI president Kim Heon-tae said public opinion in the Honam region has become fluid, with voters in Gwangju, those in their 30s, the highly educated and high earners awaiting a new, nationwide party and presidential candidate to speak for those forces who support democracy and reform.
6 Comments
This is bullshit. They will vote for whomever KimDaeJung names. These lemmings always vote as a block.
They do not even care about the future of Korea, as long as their Jolla candidate wins.
It is about time for Koreans to vote against Jolla candidate. People are mad about Jolla “progressives”(Commies) who consistently weakens the defense, tries to sever ties with the US and always supports Kim Jongil.
The worst kind of people!
This is why Korea needs to return to an electoral college system, with which they briefly - albeit ineptly — courted during the Yushin Constitution era.
Well organized voting blocs in the Jeolla regions, as well as various other factions in Korean society, have the ability to destabilize Korean society under the current direct vote or popular voting system– as our young “Netizens” so deftly proved during the 2002 elections.
Madison was so right when he said in the “Federalist Papers”:
I know many Americans are critical of an indirect voting system like the Electoral College, but I believe the founding fathers knew what they were doing when they established it realizing as Madison did and so fortuitously articulated:
Korea has yet to learn this. Fortunately the Founding Fathers did having had enough foresight to realize that a representative democracy had to be vigorously protected from the whims and capriciousness of a politically naive public –especially with regards to selecting a chief executive.
Will Korea ever be able to do the same? I hope so, but I’m conservatively pessimistic at the moment.
I think our founding fathers
H. Kim,
You expressed my thoughts.
Unfortunately, the proposal will never fly in this democracy-obsessed age. In fact, there are frequent calls in the U.S. to scrap the Electoral College.
My hope is Rho will do so much damage that the pendulum will have to swing in the right direction.
“My hope is Rho will do so much damage that the pendulum will have to swing in the right direction.”
Alas, already done!
Hope so!