Lee says failing to vote will resurrect power abusers An official at the National Election Commission in Gwacheon, Gyeonggi Province, monitors locations storing ballot boxes from early voting via closed-circuit TV on Sunday, as the country is set to hold elections Wednesday. (Yonhap) South Korea’s rival parties are offering different interpretations of the record-high early voter turnout for the June 3 local elections, with the ruling Democratic Party of Korea casting it as a sign of public support for the Lee Jae Myung administration and the main opposition People Power Party cautioning that the figures do not necessarily favor any one party.Rep. Kang Jun-hyeon, senior spokesperson of the Democratic Party, thanked more than 10 million voters for going to polling stations during the two-day early voting period in a press briefing Sunday.“I deeply thank the citizens for taking part in early voting,” Kang said. He urged those who had not yet exercised their right to vote to do so on Election Day, likening voting to a "lifeline" for South Korea’s democracy.“Refusing to vote is tantamount to refusing to choose our future,” Kang said.Rep. Seo Young-kyo of the Democratic Party also said the high early voting turnout “symbolizes people’s strong desire for the Lee Jae Myung administration’s success.”However, at a Sunday press briefing in Yeouido, Seoul, People Power Party Chair Jang Dong-hyeok cautioned that the increase in early voters did not necessarily mean a specific party would benefit.“In local elections ... we must look into which regions have high early voting turnout ... and which age groups show high early voter turnout,” Jang said. “It is still hard to determine which political party benefits from ... the fact that the early voter turnout is higher than in the previous election.”Election authorities estimated Saturday that turnout for the early voting period from Friday to Saturday reached 23.51 percent, the highest since South Korea introduced early voting for local elections in 2014.This means more than 10 million people had already voted, as the government estimated that 44.6 million people are eligible to vote in this year’s election. The early voting turnout rate for local elections has gradually increased since its introduction, with this year’s figure 2.89 percentage points higher than the previous local elections in 2022.For this election, liberal strongholds in the southwestern region recorded comparatively high turnout rates, with 38.95 percent in South Jeolla Province, 35.05 percent in North Jeolla Province and 27.83 percent in Gwangju. By contrast, conservative strongholds in the southeastern region, such as Daegu and Busan, were among the jurisdictions with lower turnout.The figure was relatively lower than those of the two most recent major elections in South Korea. The early voting turnout rate for the 2024 general election was 31.28 percent, while the 2025 early presidential election stood at 34.74 percent.Both major parties have seen success with high early voter turnout.In the 2018 local elections, the liberal party clinched a landslide victory, with early voting turnout nearly doubling from the previous local elections and the second-highest total local-election voter turnout in South Korea since 1995.The 2022 local elections, which recorded a similar early-voting turnout but lower overall turnout, led to a victory for the conservative party.Against this backdrop, President Lee Jae Myung called for voter participation through a series of posts on X over the weekend, claiming that failing to vote would allow abusers of power to return.Lee said on his X account overnight Saturday that whether “evil rulers” are elected to public office depends on people’s choice to exercise their sovereign right to vote.Quoting Greek philosopher Plato’s comment about the price people pay for indifference to public affairs, Lee said voters’ indifference would bring people “under the control of the most terrible leader.”“The power of voting is stronger than you think,” Lee wrote. “Whether those elected become loyal servants who enrich your life or evil rulers who destroy the world and inflict suffering on the people depends on the hands of the people with sovereign power.”This followed Lee’s X post on Saturday, in which he said giving up on voting is equivalent to “siding with those who are harming your life and community.”Regarding President Lee’s comments on X, Rep. Jang claimed Lee himself is an example of the “evil ruler” Lee had invoked.“If we give up voting, we are giving Lee, an abuser of his presidential power for the private gain of canceling criminal trials against him, the opportunity to erase all his crimes,” Jang said.