Photo : KBS News
With nine days left until the June 3 local elections, both the ruling and main opposition parties are rallying support and hoping to prompt “shy supporters” to head to the polls and help them win.
President Lee Jae Myung and the ruling Democratic Party have repeatedly slammed a recent marketing campaign in which Starbucks Korea evoked painful memories of a brutal military crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Gwangju in 1980.
Jung Chung-rae, the co-chair of the Democratic Party’s election committee, has ordered candidates and campaign staff to refrain from frequenting the coffee chain and proposed a bill to punish those who belittle or mock the May 18 movement.
On the other hand, the main opposition People Power Party has accused President Lee and the ruling party of scapegoating Starbucks in an attempt to divert voters’ attention from Democratic Party candidates’ flaws.
Jang Dong-hyuk, chairman of the People Power Party’s election committee, said the Democratic Party’s battle cry for this election seems to be Starbucks, and he proposed that voters head to the polls carrying a cup of Starbucks coffee.
A total of 54 candidates are vying for 16 posts as metropolitan mayors or provincial governors, and there are five-hundred-85 candidates for the two-hundred-27 seats to head lower-level administrative districts.