SUMMARY KEYWORDS

yoon, ahn, voters, people, election, lee, early voting, candidates, vote, ballots, day, merger, polling stations, pledged, pandemic, parties, chola, vowed, voting, wednesday

SPEAKERS

Alex Jenson, Kyungmi Choi

00:00

Alex Jenson  00:08

You’re listening to Koreabizcast with the KBLA. I’m your host, Alex Jensen. It is Monday, March 7, as we are really approaching spring now. And that’s a good opportunity for me to mention the Four Seasons Hotel Seoul, offering stylish elegance in the very heart of the city and making today’s episode possible, which is very much an election special with a couple of days ago, till we choose a new president in this country. I say we I’m not personally able to vote but definitely our special issues reporter kyungmi Choi is and is on the line now. Thank you very much.

Kyungmi Choi  00:44

Thank you for having me.

Alex Jenson  00:45

Are you fixed yet in your mind as to who you are gonna vote for? Don’t actually tell us who you’re leaning towards? But I’m just curious.

Kyungmi Choi  00:53

I just have to say it wasn’t an easy choice to me. But I think I know who I’m going to vote for.

Alex Jenson  01:00

Okay. Well, that actually offers an interesting insight in itself because I, I’ve heard that from a lot of people for quite a few months. And there are also people have said things like I’m going to vote for x y z because I really don’t want that person to win. And I don’t know, I don’t think it’s all negative, though. The fact that we had such fervor for early voting last Friday and Saturday suggests that there is at least a fair amount of enthusiasm for the way this election goes. But ultimately, the two big rivals are the ruling Democratic Parties Lee Jaemyung and the main opposition people power parties Yoon Sukyeol who now has the support of the minor opposition People’s Party candidate Ahn Cheolsoo, which is perhaps fitting considering how similar their parties sound by name. So Kyungmi, tell us where we’re at just two days out.

Kyungmi Choi  01:50

Right. So going back to how this merger happened, or it seemed like this candidacy merger between the two conservative parties was off the table. But the two nominees announced last Thursday that they agreed to field Yoon in as the unified opposition candidate in a surprise move, and they held a joint press conference Thursday morning, which came after the two held a meeting Wednesday night following the last presidential TV debate. And as they announced the merger, Ahn Cheolsoo stated that Yoon Sukyeol and himself are one team, that there’s no doubt there will be a perfect government change with the merger, as the two can complement each other’s shortcomings. And they also agreed to merge their parties immediately after the election as well. And on Saturday Ahn’ll accompany Yoon in his campaign activities for the first time since this move, and Yoon said that Ahn is advancing forward to create a better nation together with him. And Ahn Cheolsoo said that the current administration is causing many kinds of pain to the ordinary people with unfairness and by having double standards. And he also said that we can create a better country with fairness and common sense that Yoon symbolizes and added that the vision of his integration and future could be added on top of that, and Ahn Cheolsoo also apologize to the public for making this decision so late. And he also vowed to make sure to try his best until the very end, and and also released a handwritten letter on his Facebook page on Friday, where he acknowledged that he’s well aware that he’s disappointed those who wanted him to finish the race and apologize once again.

Alex Jenson  03:22

But just a quick practical question, Kyungmi, this announcement was made just a day before the two day early voting period began on Friday. But after early voting for overseas Koreans was held, some of them may have voted for Ahn presumably so. What does it mean?

Kyungmi Choi  03:36

Right so early voting for overseas Koreans was held from February 23 to the 28th. So this means that all the votes for Ahn Cheolsoo during this term have become wasted votes and overseas voting took place at 219 polling stations in 115 countries and voter turnout was actually pretty high. Oh it came to 71.6% meaning that over 161,000 Koreans took part and as the election authorities started printing ballots for actual election day here in Korea or last Monday. All three days before the merger announcement was made. Voters will still see Ahn’s name on the ballots are in Korea as well. And there will be a notice about Ahn’s withdrawal at polling stations. But there’s concern that some voters may be confused and still end up voting for Ahn. And a petition has also been posted on the presidential office’s website calling for measure that bans presidential candidates to drop out after overseas voting takes place.

Alex Jenson  04:32

Some people might just put their vote for Ahn as a kind of protest, being disappointed with what happened, who knows either way for those overseas voters based on pure speculation, but I think informed speculation given everything we know there may well have been 1000s of people with wasted votes already. And this development came a day after a former finance minister also dropped out of the race to endorse the ruling party’s candidate Lee Jaemyung. Pulling a lot lower than Ahn Cheolsoo, but still, every vote may end up being quite persuasive if it goes right to the wire.

Kyungmi Choi  05:09

Right so former Finance Minister Kim Dong Yeon, who was also the candidate for the minor opposition New Wave party made the announcement last Wednesday, and he said that he decided to drop out after holding a one on one talks with Lee Jaemyung and the two agreed on a policy coalition of for change of politics and the formation of an integrated government. And Kim said he will tie his shoelaces once again for the election of Lee Jaemyung. And he also said that he’ll work to reform the current structure of politics that favors those with vested rights. However, Kim said that no discussions have been made on political coalition between the ruling party and his own party.

Alex Jenson  05:45

And just to clarify, it was the National Election Commission that banned the release of poll results. As of last Thursday, that was the day the candidacy merger was announced on the conservative side between Yoon Sukyeol and Ahn Cheolsoo, and that will continue right up until 7:30pm this Wednesday, so we’ve got no very clear way of deciding the impact is purely speculation on the media’s part at this point.

Kyungmi Choi  06:12

Right. And the two main candidates as many of our listeners may be aware they’ve been on neck and neck and recent polls and that trend continued in the last surveys released before Thursday, and a poll conducted by M brain public commissioned by  Moonhwailbo blue NightBotnewspaper on 1,002 adults from Tuesday to Wednesday, Yoon Sukyeol was in the lead with 45.9% support, and Lee Jaemyung’s approval was at 45% and the gap was within the margin of error. And in another poll conducted during the same or two day period by Ipsos commissioned by the Korea Economic Daily on 1,000 adults 48.9% supported Yoon and 42.8% supported Lee and the 6.1 percentage point gap was within the margin of error. And the poll also found that in the case of a merger happening 44.9% of Ahn Cheolsoo’s supporters would opt for Yoon Sukyeol followed by 25.1% for Lee Jaemyung in 8.4% for Shim Sangjung of the minor opposition Justice Party, and Embrun public also conducted another poll commissioned by Joongangilbo newspaper from Monday to Wednesday on 2,013 adults. In the case of a conservative merger, 47.4% said they would vote for Yoon Sukyeol and 41.5% said Lee Jaemyung, and their gap was actually outside the margin of error of plus or minus 2.2 percentage points out of 95% confidence level. And Gallup Korea conducted a poll from Tuesday to Wednesday on 1,005 adults commissioned by money today and asked who should become President if Lee Jaemyung, Yoon Sukyeol, and Sim Sangjung ran as candidates, Yoon was in the lead with 42.5% followed by Lee Jaemyung with 42.2% and Sim Sangjung with 7.3%.

Alex Jenson  07:57

Let’s talk a little bit though, depending on who wins let’s say Lee or Yoon, what the country would see happen. There’s been criticism about a lack of clarity about their policies. So to get a better idea, the two candidates have summarized major pledges submitting them to the National Election Commission, both of them at the top of their lists put overcoming the COVID 19 pandemic,

Kyungmi Choi  08:22

Right so Lee Jaemyung said he’s hoping to do this by providing so full support to operators of small businesses, while Yoon Sukyeol said he would provide emergency relief programs and a post pandemic plan. And he has also been claiming that the government should offer cash handouts to all people to help people deal with pandemic related challenges, and then also issue an emergency order to provide support to small merchants that have been particularly affected by the pandemic worth 50 trillion won, and Yoon Sukyeol has been pushing for support measures only to people who have been affected by social distancing measures, saying that he’ll provide 50 trillion won in loans to small merchants and another 43 trillion won to provide them with cash handouts, and to also focus on all economic revitalization. And Lee Jaemyung has vowed to make Korea one of the top five global economic powerhouses by helping the country achieve $1 trillion in exports and $50,000 in national income, and also to boost the benchmark KOSPI index to 5000. And he has also vowed to guarantee economic rights to all members of society, as well as to provide all his signature universal basic income of one million won per person per year and support on expansionary fiscal policy. And he also pledged to guarantee the rights of workers and carry out a major job transformation to realize a society that shows growth. And Yoon Sukyeol has pledged to create a sustainable and high quality jobs and says that the private sector should lead these efforts rather than the government implementing relevant projects.

Alex Jenson  09:54

Another hugely hot topic, the real estate crisis as it’s been seen by many both can have said they’ll address this by supplying more homes.

Kyungmi Choi  10:03

Right and they both support the idea of stabilizing the housing market by redevelopment and reconstruction projects. And Lee Jaemyung has pledged to provide around 3.1 million housing units to stabilize the market and help people become homeowners. And this includes 1.4 million units that are offered as long term homes at relatively low prices. And Yoon Sukyeol has also vowed to provide 2.5 million housing units or more depending on demand, and 500,000 units will be public rental housing, while the rest will be provided by our parceling them out or as private rental apartments are the two have shown different stances regarding regulations though with Lee saying that they must be toughened to stop real estate speculation while Yoon says that regulations need to be eased to guarantee market principles and in terms of security and diplomacy Lee Jaemyung has implied that he will take a red conciliatory gesture towards North Korea and also call and Pyongyang’s denuclearization based on conditional sanctions relief. But Yoon has pledged to take tougher actions to address threats from the North through a so called peace through strength approach and to strengthen cooperation with Washington, maintaining sanctions against Pyongyang to realize complete denuclearization, and both candidates have stressed the need to strengthen ties with the US.

Alex Jenson  11:21

Yeah, really interesting to hear about those various policies and we can revisit them when we know who has actually won. It will be significant, of course, the voter turnout, the main rival parties are interpreting in different ways the record turnout that we saw in the early voting on Friday and Saturday.

Kyungmi Choi  11:39

Right so voter turnout came to 36.9%, which was over 10% higher than the previous record set in the 2020 parliamentary elections when it came to 26.69% and around 44.1 9 million Koreans are eligible to vote. So this means that 16.3 2 million people took part in early voting. And regarding this, the ruling party said that this is a result of its candidates supporters coming together, in particular interpreting the highest turnout in the Honam or Kwangju in the Chola provinces as a reaction to the conservative merger candidacy, although two Chola provinces and Kwangju came in top with voter turnout of 51.45% of voters in South Chola province to part in early voting, which was followed by 48.6% of North Chola province, and Kwangju with 48.3%. And on the other hand, the main opposition party claimed that the high turnout reflects the public’s desire to judge the current administration and for a change of government. And it’s just that it was the PPP and its candidate Yoon Sukyeol actively encouraged citizens to take part in early voting. And it also viewed the high turnout in the Honam region in a completely different light from the DPS Oh, it said that it expects the region’s choice to be forward looking and in the direction of pursuing change. And experts say that the pandemic situation would have also had an effect that led to such a high turnout, as the country has been reporting record high cases recently. So they say that voters were doubtful about being able to head to polling stations on election day would have taken part in early voting. Some also say that candidates have the main rival parties running neck and neck in opinion polls may have encouraged their supporters to hit two polls earlier. And that major developments like the conservative merger could have encouraged swing voters to take part in early voting. And another view is that it’s just a natural phenomenon as early voting turnout has been on the rise since its introduction for back in 2014.

Alex Jenson  13:40

Yeah, and there is that thing about just having the day off and getting it out of the way if you know who you’re gonna vote for. But there’s some growing controversy over early voting for COVID-19 patients and those in self isolation because there was a lot of concern in the build up that their democratic rights will be protected. How did it actually turn out?

Kyungmi Choi  14:01

So these people were able to vote on the second day of early voting on Saturday from 6pm to 7:30pm. And our COVID-19 patients that took part in early voting could participate at temporary polling stations that were set up outside regular polling stations. And this was to prevent patients from coming in contact with other voters. Or they also weren’t allowed to put the ballots in the boxes themselves, but rather have to hand the ballots over to the authorities on the site, who would collect the ballots and put them into the ballot boxes. And this was apparently in line with the rule that only one ballot box can be set up in each polling venue. But the voters weren’t properly notified about this procedure in advance. So this caused a lot of confusion on site and also raised suspicions that the ballots were being rigged. And issues were also raised with the fact that there was no consistency in what authorities used to collect the ballots. For example, some use paper envelopes or boxes while some use Ziploc bags and Some voters have reportedly had to wait outside for over an hour due to the lack of preparation at these temporary polling stations. So the National Election Commission has apologized for the controversy. And it has acknowledged that there were some issues due to shortage and limitations in voting management personnel as well as polling stations. But it also stressed that all the voting procedures were in line with relevant regulations, and that there is no possibility of illegal voting, and it also vowed to come up with countermeasures to address the issue on the actual election day. But the public continued to raise issues even after this announcement and even led to President Moon Jae In apologizing over the situation. So the commission will actually hold a press conference at 10am today for further explanation. And this issue could be a point of contention, especially as the two frontrunners are in a neck and neck race. And if the results show the gap between the two leading nominees to be extremely low, this could be common nother factor for a huge controversy surrounding the election. And apparently authorities also didn’t keep track of the exact number of patients or people in isolation who took part in early voting, or do they did they keep a list of these voters. Meanwhile, people who have tested positive and people in self isolation who weren’t able to take part in early voting will still be allowed to vote on Wednesday from 6pm to 7:30pm. After regular polling closes, are those in vulnerable groups such as senior citizens people with disabilities and pregnant women who reside in rural regions with poor access to transportation, they will be allowed to cast their ballots before 6pm are after getting approval from their local public health centers.

Alex Jenson  16:39

Well, just what we needed yet more controversy around this election, by the way, remind us what the procedures will look like on election day.

Kyungmi Choi  16:47

So for regular voters voting will begin at 6am on Wednesday and end at 6pm. And voters must remember to take their ID such as their resident registration cards or driver’s license, they have to wear masks and cast their ballots at a designated polling station. Once voters arrive at the station, they’ll have to have their temperatures checked, and also sanitize their hands and they can request for disposable gloves. And voters will be asked to lower their masks for all identification, and major broadcasters are planning to conduct exit polls and they’ll be allowed to release the results starting at 7:30pm. On Wednesday, once voting for COVID patients and people in quarantine ends. And experts expect the actual election results to be out by the early morning hours on the following day on Thursday.

Alex Jenson  17:35

So from 7:30pm We’ll start to get an idea but it’ll be a long night for those who want the decisive results. Otherwise, just set your alarm early on Thursday. Thank you so much Kyungmi for being there for us throughout this process and we’ll look forward to catching up with you afterwards.

Kyungmi Choi  17:51

Thank you for having me, Alex.

17:52

Alex Jenson  17:53

On special issues reporter Kyungmi tackling the election for us in the last few weeks we’ll have to find a good new assignment after the election of the math is done with but I also want to invite anybody with perhaps any suggestions what would you like to see particularly covered on this topic other than strictly business issues? In other words, the general arena topics that affect us in the business community and beyond. You can get in touch with us anytime through LinkedIn, search KBLA you can email us as well, info@KBLA dotnet. Let me also say thank you to the Four Seasons Hotel sold for making today’s episode possible. And see you again on International Women’s Day tomorrow.