hankyoreh

By Lee Tae-hee and Seong Yeon-cheol, staff writers
“It looks as if we’ll win at least 100 constituencies. We‘ll get around 120 seats when these are combined with proportional representation seats.” - a New Frontier Party (NFP) official.
“Even assuming we win by a small margin in constituencies that could go either way, we will get no more than 110 seats. Combined with proportional representation (PR) seats, this will give us barely 130 seats.” - a Democratic United Party (DUP) official.
The above are analyses that were offered by strategic planners in the ruling and opposition parties on April 5, with six days to go before the April 11 general election. Polling experts, on the other hand, believe the NFP and the Democratic United Party will both wrestle to get “135 seats (including PR seats) + alpha.”
Yun Hui-ung of the Korea Society Opinion Institute predicted, “It looks as if both parties will take between 130 and 140 seats. Given that it’s the end of the current administration’s term in office, surely the DUP will take the lead by two or three seats.” Kim Chun-seok of Hankook Research said, “It will depend on how many seats the Unified Progressive Party takes, but I think the DUP will become the number one party by a small margin.” This, too, constitutes a prediction of victory by getting between 130 and 140 votes.
These self-assessments of the ruling and opposition parties are in some respects a fuss designed to appeal for solidarity among their traditional supporters. We can also look forward to “hidden votes” that have not yet been revealed by opinion polls.
“As we approach the final phase, the countryside is getting sorted out, but the Seoul metropolitan area remains a problem,” said an NFP official. “Out of a total of 112 places, there are 50 or 60 where we’ll only know the results after we’ve opened the ballot boxes.”
This analysis suggests that the NFP has now achieved stable dominance in the southeastern Yeongnam region, its traditional stronghold, and has got the ball rolling in Daejeon and the Chungcheong region, where it had been weak. The NFP is expected to secure around 10 seats in these areas. Some within the party take the optimistic view that putting up a good fight in Seoul region where the battle is a close one will leave the NFP with up to 140 seats.
In light of the predictions of experts, the DUP feels a strong sense of concern. Once, at the end of last month, it predicted, going by its own analysis, that it would win 131 seats. At the time, the DUP believed it would win the election with 64 seats in the Seoul metropolitan area, 27 in the Honam region, nine in Chungcheong, four each in the Gangwon and Yeongnam regions, three in Jeju and 20 through proportional representation. This would totalled 131 seats.
“We have no grounds yet to change the prediction we made then,” said one DUP official. The analysis that the recent scandal over the alleged bugging of private individuals by the government will further solidify support for the ruling party and relax supporters of the opposition comes along similar lines to this. “I believe that, rather than solidifying support for the ruling party, the bugging of civilians has served to prevent ruling party supporters that came together in the early days of the election campaign from breaking away,” said Yun. In other words, a solid union of ruling party supporters, who are reacting sensitively when it comes to national security and Korea-US relations because of the Jeju naval base and the Korea-US Free Trade Agreement, was formed early on in this election struggle. According to this interpretation, the civilian bugging scandal broke at a time when the strength of this union was decreasing, increasing tension among supporters of the ruling party. It appears that maintaining this strong union is crucial for the NFP.
Some in the DP expect “hidden votes” to appear and produce an eleventh-hour reversal. Another DP official said, “Many members of the 20-40 generation are angry at the government. Telephone polls have little insight into how they will vote. We believe there will be a considerable number of quiet votes waiting for election day.”
　　
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