Tag: elections

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.

The Korean ruling political party has been able to turn the Druking online opinion rigging scandal with clear links to the Moon administration, back on conservatives by claiming they rigged comments during the 2007 Presidential election:

Seoul police are looking into suspicions that the main opposition party engaged in massive online opinion rigging during elections, including the 2007 presidential vote.

A newspaper reported Wednesday that the Liberty Korea Party (LKP) used a computer program to spread favorable news and jack up “likes” on comments on Internet sites from 2006 to 2014. At those times, the party’s name was first the Grand National Party and then the Saenuri Party.

The report cited the party campaign office’s chat records that it secured from an insider.

“We are checking the authenticity of the report,” the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency said.

The agency has probed a similar online manipulation scheme led by an arrested blogger linked to the ruling Democratic Party (DP).

The blogger known as Druking used the same software. In a recent letter sent to a news outlet, he said that he acquired the program from a campaign official of the Grand National Party. It was used during the 2007 presidential election, he added.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but does anyone find it quite convenient that after all these weeks Druking mentioned nothing to the media about getting the program from the GNP, but now all the sudden he does?  The timing is even more convenient considering that local elections and parliamentary by-elections are slated for June 13.

Via a reader tip comes news that Chelsea Manning is going to run for the US Senate in Maryland:

Chelsea Manning, the former Army intelligence analyst convicted of leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks, confirmed Sunday that she’s running in Maryland for a Senate seat.

“Yup, we’re running for Senate,” Manning tweeted three days after she filed her statement of candidacy with the Federal Election Commission.

The tweet also included a campaign video indicating her intention to run in the 2018 Maryland Democratic primary and was followed by a tweet seeking donations to her campaign.

She is running for the seat held by two-term Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin.  [Fox News]

I have a hard time believing the Democrats would allow a traitor and convicted felon like Manning to get elected to the Senate.  Manning is basically a Cindy Sheehan like figure who thinks she is more important than what she really is.  When Sheehan ran for Congress she was crushed by the Democrats, I expect the same thing will happen to Manning considering she has already used up her political usefulness.

It appears that the Japanese public supports Prime Minister Abe’s attempts to strengthen the defense force, modify the pacifist constitution, and take a hard-line with North Korea based on the recent election results:

Japan’s ruling coalition appeared headed to an impressive win in national elections on Sunday, in what would represent at least a partial comeback for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

A victory would boost Abe’s chances of winning another three-year term next September as leader of the Liberal Democratic Party. That could extend his premiership to 2021, giving him more time to try to win a reluctant public over to his longtime goal of revising Japan’s pacifist constitution.

In the immediate term, a victory likely means a continuation of the policies Abe has pursued in the nearly five years since he took office in December 2012 — a hard line on North Korea, close ties with Washington, including defense, as well as a super-loose monetary policy and push for nuclear energy.  [Stars and Stripes]

You can read more at the link, but it looks like the “bromance” that President Trump and Prime Minister Abe have will continue.

Japan election ads are low-budget, only allowed on public TV & look a bit like 1970s UK comedy shows. #政見放送 pic.twitter.com/kfRkcxJ4WR

— Alastair Gale (@AlastairGale) October 18, 2017

I agree that the National Intelligence Service should not be organizing people to leave comments in support of a political party, but I doubt this had much if any effect on the election:

A newly formed investigative team in the National Intelligence Service (NIS) announced Thursday that the former intelligence chief, Won Sei-hoon, who served in the conservative Lee Myung-bak administration, orchestrated a smear campaign to help former President Park Geun-hye get elected.

Park ultimately won out against current President Moon Jae-in by a small margin, though it is unclear how much impact the NIS had on public opinion at the time.

The team, which launched their probe last month after Moon became president in a snap election in May, has yet to mention whether it will hand over their evidence to prosecutors or formally ask them to dig deeper, which would likely affect the prosecution’s own trial with Won.

Last week, prosecutors requested a local court hand down a four-year jail term. A verdict is expected to come later this month.

The NIS team said Thursday that Won was found to have led a group of civilians from 2009 to 2012, who were ordered to post online comments slandering liberal politicians and presidential candidates. The group, according to the NIS, was funded through state coffers.

The so-called “commentary troop,” a term coined by the local media, gathered members from all over the country, said the NIS team, from office workers and CEOs to students and housekeepers.

The troop grew over the years, peaking at nearly 3,500 members in 2012 by the time Korea held its presidential election.

Their tasks ranged from tracking North Korea’s espionage attacks on the country’s most popular search engines to leaving right-leaning comments on online posts. Some 200 million won ($177,800) was collectively paid to troop members every month, according to the internal probe.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.