Prime Minister Goh Kun, South Korea's acting president during a presidential impeachment trial, vowed yesterday to crack down on illegal campaigning and protests in the run up to this month's parliamentary election.
The campaign period for the April 15 National Assembly election begins today amid court deliberations over last month's impeachment of President Roh Moo-hyun and following weeks of big street protests over the issue.
"I have no party affiliation and will manage the election fairly and end the unfair and illegal cycle in our history with this vote," Goh said in a statement. Past parliamentary votes have been marred by vote buying.
"The government will take stern action against illegal activities and any violations," said the veteran bureaucrat, who took over as interim president when Roh's powers were suspended after his impeachment on March 12.
Political analysts said a single-issue race would mark a setback in South Korea's vibrant but still young democracy.
"The current situation with the impeachment of President Roh dominating all other issues is not sound," said Hong Kyu-dok, politics professor at Sookmyung Women's University in Seoul. "There are many other important agenda items such as non-performing loans or unemployment, but there has not been enough discussion about these problems," he said.
The anger over Roh's impeachment that has drawn thousands of people to peaceful protests looks set to boost voter turnout to 70 percent, 10 percent higher than in 2000, absentee ballot registration data show, said a senior government official.
Goh, nicknamed "Mr Stability," thanked the people for maintaining calm during the impeachment saga. But he vowed to uphold a ban on street protests over Roh's impeachment, effective from April 2, which is also the first day of campaigning.
He threatened "stern measures" if public officials are found supporting a party or candidate in violation of laws prohibiting partisan speech by civil servants. It was those rules which Roh was found to have broken and which sparked his impeachment.
Roh was impeached by the opposition-controlled assembly for remarks he made in support of the pro-government Uri Party.
But popular outrage against the impeachment has seen the Uri Party's support ratings surge, while backing for Roh's foes, the Grand National Party (GNP) and the Millennium Democratic Party (MDP), has tumbled in public opinion polls.
In the most comprehensive media poll, a JoongAng Ilbo newspaper survey of 74,200 voters gave the populist, center-left Uri Party a solid lead in both electoral districts and in the proportional representation vote.
Voters on April 15 will cast two votes, one for individual candidates in 243 first-past-the-post constituencies and one for the 56 seats decided by a proportional representation vote on party lines.
Polish presidential candidates offered different visions of Poland and its relations with Ukraine in a televised debate ahead of next week’s run-off, which remains on a knife-edge. During a head-to-head debate lasting two hours, centrist Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, from Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s governing pro-European coalition, faced the Eurosceptic historian Karol Nawrocki, backed by the right-wing populist Law and Justice party (PiS). The two candidates, who qualified for the second round after coming in the top two places in the first vote on Sunday last week, clashed over Poland’s relations with Ukraine, EU policy and the track records of their
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
‘A THREAT’: Guyanese President Irfan Ali called on Venezuela to follow international court rulings over the region, whose border Guyana says was ratified back in 1899 Misael Zapara said he would vote in Venezuela’s first elections yesterday for the territory of Essequibo, despite living more than 100km away from the oil-rich Guyana-administered region. Both countries lay claim to Essequibo, which makes up two-thirds of Guyana’s territory and is home to 125,000 of its 800,000 citizens. Guyana has administered the region for decades. The centuries-old dispute has intensified since ExxonMobil discovered massive offshore oil deposits a decade ago, giving Guyana the largest crude oil reserves per capita in the world. Venezuela would elect a governor, eight National Assembly deputies and regional councilors in a newly created constituency for the 160,000
North Korea has detained another official over last week’s failed launch of a warship, which damaged the naval destroyer, state media reported yesterday. Pyongyang announced “a serious accident” at Wednesday last week’s launch ceremony, which crushed sections of the bottom of the new destroyer. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called the mishap a “criminal act caused by absolute carelessness.” Ri Hyong-son, vice department director of the Munitions Industry Department of the Party Central Committee, was summoned and detained on Sunday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. He was “greatly responsible for the occurrence of the serious accident,” it said. Ri is the fourth person
RSS