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Thumb People Could Decide South Korean Elections
Real estate news By Peter Schurmann and Aruna Lee
Oct 22, 2007
Lowering the voting age to nineteen and introducing voting by text message in a country where 87 percent of the population own cell phones might just engage a whole new generation in the electoral system in South Korea. But could the “thumb generation” also turn presidential elections into American Idol? NAM contributors Peter Schurmann and Aruna Lee report from Seoul. As the race for the next president of South Korea heats up, the introduction of text message voting has created a stir among the electorate here. The newest candidate to enter the fray is former TV news anchorman and the liberal United New Democratic Party (UNDP) favorite Chung Dong-young, who rode to victory in recent primary elections on the fingertips of cell-phone wielding supporters.
Chung's opponent is former Seoul mayor and presidential favorite Lee Myung-bak, head of the conservative opposition Grand National Party. And while Lee enjoys a wide margin of support, recent reports show that Chung's popularity is rising, particularly among Korea's younger voters. A recent editorial in Korea's Joongang Daily referred to the growing population of "thumb people," cell-phone users who can send a detailed text message in the blink of an eye. Cell phones and text messaging are in fact so ubiquitous here that they have now made their way into South Korea's developing democratic institutions, leading to another catch-all phrase: mobile-voting.
UNDP primaries opened on October 9, with mobile voting open to the first 30,000 registered voters to apply online. Several rounds followed, with Chung declaring victory over his UNDP rivals on October 15. Election day is set for December 19, and will be the first election following the lowering of the voting age from 20 to 19, raising the number of eligible voters to 37 million, seven percent more than the previous election in 2002. In one of the world's most tech-savvy countries, where an estimated 87 percent of people own at least one cell phone, these new, younger voters represent a considerable voting bloc that can be reached at the tip of a finger.
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