Tag: elections

A MAGA like movement is growing in Japan which became more evident after their recent upper house election that saw the ruling LDP lose majorities in both houses for the first time since 1955:

Japan’s Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba walks after addressing the media at the vote counting center in the Liberal Democratic Party headquarters in Tokyo on Sunday. AFP-Yonhap

Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s ruling coalition failed Monday to secure a majority in the 248-seat upper house in a crucial parliamentary election, NHK public television said.

Ishiba’s Liberal Democratic Party and its junior coalition partner Komeito needed to win 50 seats on top of the 75 seats they already have to retain their majority. With just one more seat to be decided, the coalition had 47 seats.

The loss is another blow to Ishiba’s coalition, making it a minority in both houses following its October defeat in the lower house election, and worsening Japan’s political instability. It was the first time the LDP has lost a majority in both houses of parliament since the party’s foundation in 1955.

Korea Herald

It looks like if Prime Minister Ishiba wants to create a new coalition he is going to have to change government policy to address the concerns of the Sanseito party which saw massive gains in this election:

The emerging populist party Sanseito stands out with the toughest anti-foreigner stance, with its “Japanese First” platform that proposes a new agency to handle policies related to foreigners. The party’s populist platform also includes anti-vaccine, anti-globalism and favors traditional gender roles.

Conservative opposition groups, especially the DPP and Sanseito, gained significant ground at the Liberal Democrats’ expense, while the centrist top opposition CDPJ was sluggish. The DPP quadrupled to 17 seats from four, according to interim results reported by Japanese media. Sanseito surged to 14 from just one.

You can read more at the link, but of course the media is claiming that Sanseito is xenophobic for wanting to limit immigration to protect Japanese culture.

Considering all the criticism past elections have been receiving that is impacting public confidence in elections, hand counts verifid by a machine count I think is the most effective way of maintaining election creditability which is what Korea plans to do:

The National Election Commission (NEC) said Wednesday it will introduce a manual ballot counting system for general elections in April in an effort to ensure transparency and prevent potential election rigging.

Currently, machines are used to sort out and count votes. 

Under the envisioned new system, however, ballots will first be sorted out by machines, and election staff will manually check all of them before putting them into the counting machines.

“It is meant to boost transparency and credibility over the course of the elections to prevent vote-rigging suspicions,” the commission said, adding that repeated suspicions over election fraud have “hampered national unity and fostered the boycott of election results.”

It is expected to take longer for the commission to confirm election results under the new system, and the commission will significantly beef up personnel for the process.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Today is the big day for the U.S. election:

Koreans with voting rights in the U.S. head to the polls today to cast their ballots in what is considered one of the messiest, most contentious and controversial presidential elections in U.S. history. 

As unpredictable as this election night is expected to be, it is unclear whether Koreans, as a whole, will choose the Democratic or Republican ticket.

”I’ve never struggled this much to make up my mind on who to vote,” said Park Dong-hwan, 56, who owns a laundry business in the suburbs of Seattle. After acquiring U.S. citizenship, this is his third time voting in the U.S. presidential election. 

”I’ve always been a Republican, but I didn’t want to vote for Trump. I really didn’t,” said Park, who still ended up voting for the Republican candidate via mail-in ballot. ”That was my biggest struggle.”

Same goes for Democratic supporter Ji Choi, 34, who is yet to decide which way her vote will go.

”I fundamentally support Democratic policies, but the presidential and vice presidential candidates seem to be much farther left than what I’d like,” she said, adding that she may end up not voting at all. (……..)

”Many of the older Koreans like me, who run a small business, vote for Trump not because we love him as an individual. We’re making the decision based on the Republican party’s economic policies,” said Park Jin-moo, 63, who recently participated in a ”Koreans for Trump” rally held in Los Angeles.

Law enforcement is another issue older Koreans are focusing on. 

”We can’t have riots run loose, but a Biden administration will likely lead to weaker law enforcement, which in turn leaves small business vulnerable to looting,” said Park.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but I can definitely understand why a Korean-American with a small business would vote for Trump considering how many of them have had their businesses destroyed or impacted negatively by recent policies from their local governments.

This is an interesting report about how the Chinese may have interfered in the South Korean parliamentary elections this past April:

So, as if we didn’t have enough to worry about, South Korea’s April 2020 National Assembly elections were likely rigged, with help from China. There may not be a smoking gun (yet), but there are a lot of empty shell casings scattered around and a seemingly severely wounded democracy.

A recently released independent report, Fraud in South Korea’s April 2020 Elections: It Probably Happened and is a Big Deal for the United States, by Grant Newsham, a retired Marine Colonel and former reserve head of intelligence for Marine Forces Pacific, details some of the alleged methods used as well as the indications of inconsistencies in results.

They include Electronic Counting Machines (ECM) and/or attached computers containing Huawei components; the National Election Commission server allegedly “protected” by a Huawei firewall; early voting ballots printed with QR codes, making them easy to manipulate which is why the practice is banned in some jurisdictions; serious chain of custody issues for early vote ballots; a large number of unexplained fires at election-related centres; and much more.

The combined outcome was a massive, surprising win for President Moon Jae-in’s party in an election with results that seemed so statistically improbable that the former head of the highly prestigious Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology said “either God did it or it was rigged”.

The Sunday Guardian

You can read more at the link.

Here are the restrictions in place for this week’s parliamentary elections:

As for Wednesday’s general elections, the government announced that hospitalized patients and quarantined people with symptoms will not be allowed to cast a vote, but that asymptomatic people under quarantine will be allowed.

Those who are quarantined and do not show any symptoms Wednesday will be allowed to leave their homes from 5:20 p.m. to arrive at their polling station by 6 p.m. On their way, they must wear a face mask and either walk or drive and not use public transport. Once they arrive at the polling station, they will wait in a separate location until other voters finish casting their ballots.  

Once the other voters have completely left the station after 6 p.m., asymptomatic people under quarantine will place their votes, after which they must return back home by 7 p.m. The government warned that anyone who wanders off during this time will be severely punished. Quarantined people who wish to vote must respond to a text message sent by their local government office Monday or Tuesday, or in case they were told to self-quarantine after Tuesday noon, contact their local government office to inform their will to vote.

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

Well so much for Young Kim being the first Korean-American woman elected to Congress:

The South Korea-born politician took the lead in initial vote counting in the Nov. 6 election. But she lost to Cisneros by 1.6 percentage point as of 8:00 p.m. after mail-in ballots were counted, according to the Associated Press.

They competed to succeed Republican Ed Royce, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, in the district, which includes parts of Los Angeles, Orange and San Bernardino counties and is two-thirds Asian and Latino.

Kwon Yang-sook, wife of late former President Roh Moo-hyun, votes at a polling station in Gimhae, South Gyeongsang Province, on June 13, 2018. (Yonhap)

It has been a good week for President Moon Jae-in:

The ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) has swept the local elections as well as by-elections for 12 empty National Assembly seats.

According to exit polls and the vote count by midnight Wednesday, the DPK clinched 14 out of 17 governor and mayoral posts. The largest conservative Liberty Korea Party (LKP) managed to win in the mayoral and governor elections in Daegu and North Gyeongsang Province ― its traditional strongholds. Independent candidate Won Hee-ryong won the Jeju governor’s post.

The DPK overwhelmingly won in southeast regions including South Gyeongsang Province, Ulsan and Busan, exit polls showed. The party had never won elections in these regions before. The outcome means the liberal party successfully overcame deep-rooted hostilities in these areas, largely thanks to the high popularity of President Moon Jae-in.   [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but I have always said that President Moon may be a leftist, but he is an extremely smart leftist.  Does anyone think it was just a coincidence that the Trump-Kim summit was timed to happen right before the election?  Also look at how Moon buried the damaging Druking scandal by naming a special prosecutor right before the Trump-Kim summit.  This timing assured that the news would be buried by coverage of the summit.

Finally the Moon administration has been able to effectively take over control of most of the major media outlets in South Korea.  Unless his North Korea policies end up imploding over the next year I expect that President Moon and thus the LKP will remain popular in South Korea.