Post-344: One Week to the Election; Closer Look at a “Political Noise Truck” [Korea Election 2016]

I write this on Tuesday evening, April 5, Korea time. Regular voting begins in this country’s national elections one week from tomorrow morning.

This year, direct elections will be held in 253 constituencies, with a further 47 members allocated proportionally based on party vote totals, for a total of 300 seats.

The current National Assembly has only 292 seats filled (Korean Wiki), presumably because of the expulsion and jailing, in 2014, under charges of treason, of several far-left National Assembly members. The Korea Herald, the right-leaning English newspaper, suggested Monday, disapprovingly, that some of the remnants of this far-left party, allegedly pro-North-Korea, have regrouped and are running again in 2016.

Here is the election outlook, according to the Korea Herald, reporting on recent polls:

Likely to Win (“safe seats”)
82 seats: Saenuri Party [새누리당] (right-wing, currently governing with a slim majority and the presidency)
35 seats: Democratic Party [더불어민주당] (left-wing, heirs to the Sunshine Policy but trying hard to “rebrand”)
20 seats: People’s Party [국민의당] recently formed by Ahn Cheol-Soo [안철수] (called “centrist;” populist) (See post-342)
6 seats: Others and Independents
110: Too Close to Call
253: Total Seats to be Elected Directly (plus 47 proportional = 300).

Here is one of the trucks I referred to in post-343, “Waving Back at the Political Noise Trucks.” (This was not the truck I “waved back” at.)

Candidate Park calls himself “The Fool of Songpa” (송파바보 박성수입니다) on his placard, which seems odd. I don’t know what to make of that.

The Fool of Songpa, though, seems likely to lose. I learn from Korean Wiki that Songpa District (송파구) of Seoul, a rather wealthy area, is a stronghold of the conservative Saenuri Party. All three of Songpa District’s current National Assemblymen are Saenuri members. Gangnam District itself is just as solidly Saenuri.

The Democratic machine was clearly weaker in the area. Behold, above, the two-man street-corner operation during prime Saturday politicking hours. The “red team” (Saenuri Party) had a much slicker operation in the neighborhood (See again post-343, at the end, for a further brief account of each side’s politicking tactics as I experienced them in my own small way.)

In Jongno District today, Tuesday, I saw a few more of these sorts of trucks. The one I got the best look at had three people in blue standing in the back, holding a kind of railing, as a driver sped by and one of those in the back jabbered something indecipherable to me, her voice amplified over traffic…