Yesterday was election day, in Korea. Which is a sort of public holiday. Most countries either hold elections on a day when people are off anyway (like Sunday), or else they don't give people a holiday, but accommodate the need of workers to take some time off from work to vote. But Korea makes everybody take the day off – except small businesspeople, I suppose – there were still some guys banging on metal stuff in the factory-like establishment across the road from my new apartment.
Anyway, I kind of avoided going out in public. The whole election thing is a bit overwhelming, with trucks and dancing girls and bowing campaign workers beside major highways and loudspeakers and crazy campaign jingles. I just hid in my room, feeling kind of moody.
I'm convinced more and more that the 하나라 party is basically a front for the reactionary Christian right, in Korea, much the way that the Republicans have gotten more and more that way in the US, abandoning their secular conservative and libertarian roots. For that reason, although I don't agree with everything the 민주 stand for, I was hoping they'd do well in the elections, mostly to register a protest against 이명박's administration, since these are local-only, mid-term elections.
I watched the election results on the TV this morning, and it was a mixed bag: 하나라 won the Seoul and Gyeonggi governorships, looks like, which are the two largest and influential constituencies that voted. But overall 민주당 seems to have done better than I was expecting. I was surprised by the number of independents who did well, too, especially in counties and towns in the southern part of the country.