Post date: Apr 09, 2012 2:51:22 PM
SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA (RECENT - APRIL 2012) (REUTERS) - South Korea's liberal opposition, bolstered by under-40s and the power of social media, could spring a surprise win in this week's parliamentary elections despite opinion polls that show it tying with the ruling conservatives.
The rise of social media as a powerful political tool could spring a surprise in South Korea's general election due to be held on April 11.
Experts say traditional pollsters base their projections on owners of fixed telephone lines, whereas people in their 20s and 30s, who form 37 percent of the voting population, rarely use them.
The majority of young people, more likely to carry a smartphone in their pockets, are mostly liberal and their views are expressed and spread online, often by using social networks via their mobile phones.
The five most popular politicians on Twitter are all left-wing. The top conservative is presidential contender Park Geun-hye who ranks eighth with about 180,000 followers, according to Koreantweeters.com, a website on Twitter power.
South Korea has the world's second largest blogging community after China. Twitter use in the country is twice the world average, according to a Singapore Management University study.
And now it has the potential for enormous leverage in elections because the government has lifted a ban on campaigning in social media networks.
"Twitter has impacted elections enormously. Many young people do not have an interest in politics, so they do not know which party they should support. Nowadays major young active twitters are progressive," said 47-year-old Kim Mi-wha, a television comedian with almost 290,000 Twitter followers.
She is just one of a band of celebrity super-tweeters embracing liberal causes online.
Super-Tweeters like Kim already helped elect an independent activist as mayor of Seoul last year, ending conservative control over the capital.
As the political campaigning landscape changes, an analyst said it's an important aspect that the country holds the general and presidential elections in the same year for the first time in 20 years.
"A special feature in this general election is that we see a weakened impact of the issue of punishing the current government since the presidential elections will be held in the same year, there are many unified candidates by the opposition solidarity and new media, such as social media services, become legal in the campaigning," said political analyst Professor Kim Hyung-joon at Seoul's Myongji University.
The two female leaders of the major political parties - Park Geun-hye for ruling Saenuri Party and Han Myeong-sook for the Democratic United Party - have been chanting similar slogans of reviving the livelihood of the people.
When it comes to a free trade deal between the United States and South Korea opinions differ. The conservative ruling party supports the agreement, while the progressive opposition parties demand it should be re-negotiated or abolished.
"(The main opposition party) urges the U.S.-South Korea free trade agreement, which its leaders promoted in the past, to be abolished. If it is abolished, who can trust our country? Our country will be isolated in the world community, right?" Park told her supporters.
Opposition parties have maintained they should punish the current Lee Myung-bak administration.
"Do you want to continue living in the country like this? Democracy has collapsed. South Korea has been ruined. The sense of morality has been lost," said Han during her campaign.
South Korea's parliamentary elections are essentially a dry run for the country's powerful presidency. That vote in December will be the key test of whether the Twitter-using liberals can turn their lock on cyberspace into hard political power.