Roh Leads Exit Polls (South Korean Presidential Election)

A squeeker... but they're all pointing the same way...

Oh WOW !You mean S Korea has better system than VNS?

I haven't been following the S. Korean election. Which one's more pro-U.S.?

Both want to revise SOFA. Roh is leftist. Here are the details: Voting Starts in 16th Presidential Election (South Korea)

Speaking of which, Reuters says: "Exit polls in previous South Korean elections have not always proved to be correct. The National Election Commission will begin issuing the results of vote-counting from around 9.00 p.m. (7 a.m. EST) in an election that is virtually a dead heat."

Thanks. Appreciate the info.

Looks like the Lefty won.

The lefty anti-American candidate appears to be winning. But again, this is the exit polls. Everyone has beens saying this is a close race (odd, seems to have a lot of these lately, US, Germany, now South Korea). The final outcome could be anyones guess at this point.

as of 8:57 Korean(Tokyo) time, 40% with the Lefty winning by a sliver of 5,000 votes. The traditional lefty provinces of Junla(the southwest quarter) are polling 93~98% in his favor.

odd, seems to have a lot of these lately, US, Germany, now South Korea

That same thought has crossed my mind too in recent months - it's rather strange to have whole countries (or at least the voting public) to be almost split down the middle.

Good ... maybe they'll force us to remove our troops from Korea. As a vet having served three tours there, it's time to pull the security blanket off these ungrateful a$$holes and see how they like the enlightened leadership of that demented dwarf, Kim Jong Il.

Very latest via BBC world service: 52% of votes counted:

Roh 48.3%
Lee 47.2%

Lefty guy spokesman says he's "confident"

... maybe they'll force us to remove our troops from Korea. As a vet having served three tours there, it's time to pull the security blanket off these ungrateful a$$holes and see how they like the enlightened leadership of that demented dwarf, Kim Jong Il.

I agree with you it's time these people defend themselves. However, I suspect that the new S. Korean president will think carefully about trying to push our troops out after being briefed on the military realities. Regardless, this should be interesting.

I haven't been following the S. Korean election. Which one's more pro-U.S.?

Lee is more pro-US and is in fact the favorite of the Bush Admininstration which has nevertheless not publicly taken sides in the South Korean presidential election. Lee had the momentum and closed the gap with the pro-Sunshine Policy with North Korea peacenik Roh to almost nothing in recent weeks, but it appears that he is going to lose this by a whisker. Very sad and dissapointing result for my South Korean comrades which means the current anti-American trend in the ROK will not be reversed anytime soon.

From the Atlanta-Journal Constitution this morning:

Drama might tip Korean vote
A candidate's stance on relations with the U.S. and N. Korea costs him a political alliance and possibly the presidency.
- Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thursday, December 19, 2002

Seoul, S. Korea --- The election-eve collapse Wednesday night of a political marriage is seen likely to tip today's dead-heat South Korean presidential race to a hawkish conservative who has vowed to end South Korea's ''sunshine policy'' of friendship toward North Korea.

The 11th-hour political drama left Roh Moo-hyun, who reportedly had a slight edge in the polls, scrambling to try to salvage his candidacy after his remarks Wednesday night that South Korea might be neutral if the United States fought North Korea.

Roh's remarks, suggesting abandonment of South Korea's long military alliance with and dependence on the United States, prompted the pullout of his official political partner, Chung Mong-joon.

''We retract our support,'' a spokeswoman for Chung said in a statement late Wednesday night. Roh's remarks were a ''betrayal'' of the agreed policy between the two former rivals, whose political union earlier this month had sharply boosted Roh's candidacy.

Role of United States

Until the bombshell announcement, today's election was seen as a close test between Roh, a former activist critical of the dominant U.S. influence here, and Lee Hoi-chang, a conservative who favors keeping American troops in South Korea and supports Washington's hard line toward Pyongyang.

The election is billed as one in which voters will decide whether to set their country on a more independent course from the United States. The victor will replace Kim Dae-jung, the Nobel-winning president, whose term expires in February. Under South Korea's single five-year presidential term, Kim cannot run again.

Much of the campaign debate has centered on Roh's appeal for more national pride and a policy that is independent of the United States. Although Roh denied he wants to end the half-century alliance with Washington, which keeps 37,000 troops in South Korea, he said at a rally Wednesday afternoon, ''We should proudly say we will not side with North Korea or the United States.''

He amplified that at another rally Tuesday evening, suggesting that in the event of a fight between North Korea and the United States, South Korea might attempt to moderate.

Even as Roh reportedly raced to Chung's house at midnight to try to restore the alliance, aides to Lee were billing the development as a victory-clincher for their candidate.

''This will win the election for us,'' said Park Won-hong, a Grand National Party assemblyman and adviser to Lee.

Turbulent campaigns

The election campaign already had been buffeted by unexpected events. A U.S. military court's acquittal of two soldiers involved in a tragic highway accident here fueled a gathering resentment toward U.S. power and privilege here, boosting the popularity of Roh.

But the revelation that neighboring North Korea is attempting to develop nuclear weapons served to underscore the importance of the U.S. troops stationed in South Korea, adding to support for conservative Lee.

Both candidates have suggested the other is dangerous.

''They say if I become president, there will be a war,'' Lee said to cheering supporters at a rally here Wednesday night. ''Something like that would happen only if North Korea looks down at the South Korean president. If I'm elected, that would not happen.''

''We almost went to the brink of war in 1993 with North Korea, and at the time we didn't even know it,'' Roh said of the U.S. plans to bomb North Korea's nuclear plants. Under his opponent, Roh said, the United States will continue to take South Korea's acquiescence for granted.

''We don't want to become spectators again,'' he said. ''In the old days, we were not able to solve our problems ourselves. Now it is different. We should say with confidence what we want and what we demand.''

Questioning the U.S.-South Korea alliance would have been considered traitorous little more than a decade ago under Seoul's military dictators, and at least far-fringe radical for most of the years since. But Roh's message is now mainstream enough that both parties said this week he was slightly ahead in the popularity polls.

And both sides agree this election presents voters with a sharp philosophical choice that has cleaved South Korea's population by both ideology and age.

''Never before in Korean election history has the older generation come out so publicly to call to the younger generation to understand the need for this country not to lose what we gained in the Korean War,'' said the chairman of Lee's Grand National Party, Suh Chung-won, 59, in an interview here. ''The older generation, like me, is desperate to let the young generation know this is a dangerous road.''

Roh, 56, a self-taught lawyer from a poor family who fancies comparisons of himself with Abraham Lincoln, earned public recognition in the street-tough politics of labor activists and anti-establishment civic groups.

He once called for removal of U.S. troops --- but now says that was rash.

''Roh wants South Korea to have more pride,'' said Lee Hae-chan, an assemblyman and chief strategist for Roh. ''The Cold War is over. We need a new partnership'' with the United States.

And Roh balked at the Bush policy of trying to isolate North Korea, rather than negotiating, to force it to abandon its nuclear development program. Instead, he favors a continuation of Kim's ''sunshine policy'' of friendly engagement toward the north.

''In no circumstances will we cut our dialogue with North Korea,'' he said on the campaign trail.

Lee, 67, by contrast, declares that ''the sunshine policy is a failure'' and vows to hew closely to the Bush administration's tough line against North Korea to try to force it to give up its nuclear uranium enrichment program.

Lee won his political esteem with a reputation for unusual honesty and probity in a political system rife with chicanery and envelopes stuffed with cash. Despite that contrast, he is viewed as one of the last of the old guard of war-era politicians.

Since the mid-1990s, he has been leader of a party that inherited South Korea's feeling of indebtedness and dependence on the United States. Lee and his party see no choice but to rely on U.S. protection from neighboring North Korea and to follow its political lead in dealing with the recalcitrant regime. The alternative, they say, is to shoulder a huge burden for South Korea's own defense.

''It's not a question of being 'pro' or 'anti' the United States,'' Lee said at a news conference Wednesday. ''It's a matter of necessity for South Korea's prosperity. Roh does not recognize that.''

But Lee, too, has felt the political winds and has tried to lure undecided voters by edging toward sharper criticism of the agreement under which U.S. troops are stationed here.

Those swing voters are thought to be mostly in their 40s. Analysts say they hold the key to the election --- and to whether a new generation of political leaders replaces the ''three Kims'' who have dominated South Korean politics for decades --- Kim Dae-jung, Kim Young-sam and Kim Jong-pil.

Both main candidates are trying to woo those and other youthful voters. Lee, a stiff former Supreme Court judge, is desperately trying to remake his image as hip and groovy, complete with a set of cartoon political caricatures, including one that incongruously portrays him as a ''cyber jockey'' in baggy jeans and sneakers.

The image tries to raid Roh's most potent weapon --- the Internet, where online chat rooms have replaced mass rallies for his core supporters in their 20s and 30s.

Four other candidates are in the race. One, socialist Kwon Young-ghil, may well prove pivotal. He could cut into Roh's left-leaning support group enough to tip a close election in Lee's favor, according to analyst Hahm Sung-deuk, of Korean University.

''Kwon is very popular among the young,'' Hahm said. ''He's the Ralph Nader of Florida,'' whose third-party candidacy helped lose the state and the 2000 presidential election for Al Gore.

I was just reading a heroic story of rescue in the dead of winter when some 100,000 Koreans were fleeing the advancing NK and Chinese Armies. The captain of a fully loaded re-fueling freighter, the SS Meredith, navigated a mine filled harbor to recsue several thousand of the desperate and dying Koreans. Of course the captain was American.

Teach your children (and grandchildren) well. Apparently this has become lost on the Koreans. Dangerous game these young fools are playing, turning their back on the USA.

Not to mention my father, being in the infantry, spent too many nights in deadly subfreezing weather sleeping under a plactic tarp on the frozen ground so these people could talk with two cell phones plugged to their ears.

I view this as the latest in the ongoing series of overtly Communist, covertly Communist or pro-Communist leaders who have been elected over the past year in nations critical to the geopolitical strength of the West. A definite trend, and one not being dealt with strategically by the West! How far can this go before there is an accounting? Or will it take the onset of global war to make it obvious enough for the sheeple to get a clue?