South Korean voters cast their ballots in parliamentary elections on Wednesday despite the coronavirus outbreak in the country, Yonhap news agency reported. By 2 pm local time (10.30 am Indian Standard Time), 2.33 crore voters, or 53%, of the electorate had cast their ballots.
The voting will go on till 6 pm local time. Last week, early voting had been held, with a record 26.69% turnout, the news agency said.
The overall voter turnout in the 2016 elections was 58%. An official of the National Election Commission said he hopes the turnout this time will cross 60%. “On the back of the high early voting turnout, this year’s turnout is unlikely to be lower than the previous general elections’ results,” he said.
South Korea’s 300-seat unicameral National Assembly has 253 directly elected seats and 47 proportional representation seats.
The ruling Democratic Party of President Moon Jae-in is widely expected to win the polls. The liberal Moon-led government’s popularity had dipped last year due to a prolonged economic slowdown and a political scandal involving former Justice Minister Cho Kuk. However, its handling of the Covid-19 crisis has earned praise, Yonhap said.
The South Korean government had last month refused to postpone the elections. To hold the parliamentary elections as scheduled, South Korean election officials and health authorities have drawn up preventive measures, AP reported. This includes the use of duct tape or stickers to mark social distancing space from the streets to polling booths, and poll workers supplying medical gel and protective gloves to voters at the booth. People are also being tested at booths for fever.
Patients hospitalised with the infection are allowed to vote by mail if they have applied to do so. Around 400 such patients participated in early voting.
The number of daily cases of coronavirus in South Korea continued to fall on Wednesday, with less than 30 such instances, The Korea Times reported. The total number of cases in the country now stands at 10,591, according to an estimate by Johns Hopkins University.
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