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Coming Wednesday 37.67 million S. Koreans are eligible to vote in the presidential election. And the "winner" maybe is already clear: Lee Myung-bak, the candidate from the (in many parts extreme) conservative GNP. And of course the losers are also clear: all exploited and oppressed parts of the S.K. society. That's just alarming!!

But not less alarming is the fact that large parts of the exploited class take into consideration to vote for one of the conservative, respectively reactionary candidates. At first last Sunday the leadership of KFTU (the reformist Korean Federation of Trade Union) decided to support Lee Myung-bak, THE hard-core enemy of the workers' movement/labour unions (here you can read about the background). 

But yesterday I'd to learn about a much more strange development:
According to the latest poll by Realmeter only 20,7 percent of the DLP sympathizers are concidering to vote for Kwon Young-ghil (the DLP candidate), but about 43 percent are thinking about to vote for the conservative and reactionary candidates (22,7 percent for Lee Hoi-chang!!!, according to Realmeter). Incredible!! (*)

I'm sure that the majority of the DLP sympathizers took the streets in spring 2004 to defend Roh Moo-hyun against the impeachment  campaign initiated by the GNP. At that time we, activists in the migrant workers' struggle (ETU-MB/MSSC), but also many other Korean left activists had massive criticism against the point of view and activities by in particular the DLP and All Together/Da ham-kke, DLP's youth organization. Like a mantra they repeated their opinion: "Because GNP is fascist (sic!!!) we have to fight at first against their impeachment campaign, later we've to fight against the Roh gov't.."... And now??? What's "difference" comparing to 2004?

* Of course I know that such kinds of polls, especially when made by bourgeois institutions, are not necessarily reflecting the reality, but...

PS:
The DLP, as far as I know, is a creation by KCTU... So it means that, likely, the majority of the DLP members and sympathizers are also members/activists in the KCTU...(^^) 

Related article:

☞ Clouds over South Korea's president-to-be (Asia Times/HK, 12.15)

Update 12.17:

Hankyoreh wrote today: How is it that seven million irregular workers support someone who will make working conditions worse, that four million farmers prefer the candidate who will open their markets completely, that merchants in local markets are fanatic about the candidate who supports discount megastore chains, that people in small companies speak in support of the candidate who will work for the interests of the conglomerates, and that the people in the lower classes prefer the candidate who will move away from being a welfare state? What in the world is amiss that the middle and “ordinary” (seomin) classes are choosing to go down a path that will work against them?

And here comes another complete cracy thing in connection with Wednesday's election:

"In a desperate last-minute move to keep Lee from office, Chung proposed a coalition Monday with the most conservative candidate in the race, Lee Hoi-chang - who has called for a tougher stance on North Korea that runs counter to Chung's pro-engagement policy", AP reported today (harrharr, no further comment is necessary!!??)