South Korea Local Elections: Vote Counting Begins Tonight, Focus on Ruling Party's Expansion

(Central News Agency correspondent Yang Qifang, Seoul, 3rd) South Korea's local elections were held today, with voting set to close at 6 PM Korean time. Counting is expected to take over 7 hours. As the local elections coincide with the first anniversary of President Lee Jae-myung's administration, there is external interest in whether the ruling party's local influence will expand further.

According to Yonhap News Agency, the 9th local elections and by-elections for National Assembly seats are being held simultaneously nationwide today. Counting will begin around 6:20 PM after voting ends, and the contours of the winners could be seen as early as around midnight tonight. However, in closely contested areas with very narrow vote margins, the outcome may not be decided until around 3 to 4 AM tomorrow.

Although the situation varies by district, city, and county, the first batch of counting results is expected to be announced around 7:30 PM today.

The National Election Commission will follow procedures including opening ballot boxes, sorting ballots by election type, sorting by ballot sorting machines, manual verification (hand recount), counting, confirming the counting status table, inspection by commissioners, and the announcement of final results by the NEC chairperson. The results will be published on the NEC website.

The report indicates that the average counting time for this local election may be slightly longer than the 7 hours and 40 minutes for the 8th local elections in 2022. The main reason is the addition of a manual verification (hand recount) procedure, which was introduced starting from the 22nd National Assembly elections in 2024.

A total of 258 counting stations have been set up nationwide for this election, with approximately 197,000 voting management personnel and 117,000 counting management personnel, totaling over 314,000 people involved in election work.

This local election is a nationwide election held one year after the Lee Jae-myung government took office. The opposition People Power Party is campaigning on a "judgment of the government" platform, while the ruling Democratic Party is focusing on a "judgment of insurrection forces," targeting the People Power Party.

If the government and ruling party win this election, they will gain control of local power in addition to legislative and executive power, providing strong momentum for policy implementation in the second year of the administration. If the opposition wins, the ruling camp's various national policy initiatives, driven by its overwhelming parliamentary majority, may face some resistance.

While there are various interpretations of the criteria for victory both inside and outside the political sphere, most analyses suggest that the election results in Seoul and Busan will be the key indicators for this election. (Editor: Tian Ruihua) 1150603