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Younger generations turning away from liberal ruling party

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Park Young-sun, left, the ruling Democratic Party of Korea's Seoul mayoral by-election candidate, casts a ballot at an early voting station in Jongno District Office, central Seoul, Friday, while Oh Se-hoon, candidate of the main opposition People Power Party, waves during a campaign at Sangam-dong in western Seoul, Friday. Young voters are turning toward Oh of the conservative party, reflecting frustrations with the current liberal Moon Jae-in administration. Joint press corps
Park Young-sun, left, the ruling Democratic Party of Korea's Seoul mayoral by-election candidate, casts a ballot at an early voting station in Jongno District Office, central Seoul, Friday, while Oh Se-hoon, candidate of the main opposition People Power Party, waves during a campaign at Sangam-dong in western Seoul, Friday. Young voters are turning toward Oh of the conservative party, reflecting frustrations with the current liberal Moon Jae-in administration. Joint press corps

By Kwon Mee-yoo

It is commonly perceived that younger people are more liberal than older generations and tend to vote for the more liberal parties or candidates.

Looking at the Seoul mayoral by-election slated for April 7, however, the usual tendency doesn't seem to be applied, as polls have shown that people in their 20s and 30s are more supportive of Oh Se-hoon of the main opposition conservative People Power Party (PPP) than Park Young-sun of the ruling liberal Democratic Party of Korea (DPK).

With the election day drawing closer, the release of new opinion polls has been officially banned since Friday, but polls released the previous day showed Oh was far ahead of Park in support rate from those in their 20s and 30s.

According to a poll conducted by Realmeter on 806 adults in Seoul, 51.2 percent of people in their 20s and 52.8 percent of those in their 30s said they would vote for Oh, compared to 32.7 percent and 39.1 percent for Park, respectively. Oh has been outstripping Park in all age groups.

But contrary to the huge support for Oh from the conservative party, only 19.8 percent of those in their 20s and 19.7 percent of those in their 30s answered their ideological tendency as conservative. This is much lower than the overall average of all age groups, 26 percent.

Political analysts attributed this result to the young generation's disappointment with and antagonism toward the current liberal Moon Jae-in administration, fueled by the recent land speculation scandal involving employees of the state-run Korea Land & Housing Corp. (LH).

The younger generations were highly supportive of the Moon administration from the beginning as they led the candlelit rallies against the corruption scandals involving former President Park Geun-hye.

However, unlike its slogan of justice and fairness, the Moon administration has been embroiled in myriad corruption issues such as former Justice Minister Cho Kuk's alleged influence peddling and academic record forgery to help his daughter enter a prestigious medical school.

Moon's real estate policy also failed to stabilize housing prices, which has made it almost impossible for the young generation to buy homes on their own.

Bae Chul-ho, chief researcher at polling company Realmeter, brought up the idea of "anger voting" as the younger generation wants to send a warning or punishment to the current administration.

"Traditionally those in their 20s and 30s have been favorable to the liberal party, which is now the DPK. However, for this election, strong antipathy and criticism toward the current government and the ruling party is transforming into support for Oh from the conservative party," Bae said.

Bae also noted the young generation in their 20s and 30s are more sensitive to gender issues than the older generations, and the sexual harassment allegations raised against the disgraced former mayors of Korea's top two largest cities ― Seoul and Busan ― might have influenced the young voters to withdraw their support for the liberal ruling party.

Seoul and Busan are holding the by-elections because of the sexual harassment issues of their former mayors, both belonging to the ruling DPK. Former Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon killed himself after being accused of sexually harassing a female secretary, while former Busan Mayor Oh Keo-don stepped down after admitting to sexually harassing a female employee at the city government.

A high turnout for early voting, which is being conducted Friday and Saturday, is also traditionally considered a good sign for liberal parties, as younger people tend to choose the early voting to enjoy a day off on the election day. This has usually led liberal parties to encourage young voters to participate in early voting.

However, for this election, Oh and the PPP have been urging young people to vote early assuming they are supportive of him.

Park and the DPK, instead, are striving to win young minds. While on the campaign trail on Thursday, she promised to issue traffic passes for Seoul citizens aged between 19 and 24, which would offer about 40 percent discounts for bus and subway fares. On Friday, she also pledged to provide them with vouchers for free use of 5GB of data, another hurriedly presented promise.


Kwon Mee-yoo meeyoo@koreatimes.co.kr


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