South Korea’s ruling party wins legislative election by a landslide
South Korean voters have overwhelmingly cast their ballots for the governing party, according to an almost complete count of votes published on Thursday.
The Democratic Party of social liberal President Moon Jae In and its satellite parties were on course to secure 180 seats for a majority in the 300-seat National Assembly, the results showed.
The opposition conservative United Future Party (UFP) and a smaller sister party had 103 seats, but the official results were yet to be called.
The National Election Commission put voter turnout at 66 per cent, the highest in Asia’s fourth-biggest economy in 28 years.
The Democratic Party seems to have capitalized on the public’s view of Moon’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
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Opinion polls ahead of the vote indicated that the majority of the population believe the government has done a good job in containing the coronavirus outbreak, and extensive testing has made South Korea a model for other countries in dealing with the pandemic.
The number of new infections each day has stabilized under 50 for some time, compared to a peak of over 900 new cases at the end of February. More than 10,500 cases of infection have been confirmed in South Korea. (dpa)
