Sixty-one-year-old Cho Dae-hyeong had never missed out on his right to vote in an election. The Vietnam War veteran is an advocate of a hawkish stance toward North Korea and has cast his ballot for conservative parties since the 1987 elections. 

But this time around, he decided to exercise his right “not to vote” — a measure he believes would punish the conservative Saenuri Party mired in factional strife and its counterpart The Minjoo Party of Korea for failing to offer an alternative.

“They deserve the punishment,” Cho said, venting his anger at the establishment parties. “Whether they are conservative or liberal parties, they are the same when it comes to treating the people as pushovers. They’d better know what it means when people like me refuse to vote,” he said.

The mainstream parties had hailed the election as a means for the public to evaluate each sides’ legislative and political performance. But the electorate appeared to increasingly doubt that going to polling stations would address their frustration at the nation’s faltering economy, security threats and political standoffs.

In many conversations on the street, cynicism appears to run deep toward elite politicians who are aloof about the interests of voters — unless it comes to asking for their votes.

“I don’t know or care about who is running in our constituencies,” said Koo Jung-hoi, a 27-year-old office worker living in Suwon, south of Seoul. “Whoever represents our neighborhood doesn’t solve my problem. If I met someone who says otherwise, I would be shocked,” he said.

Korean politics, with their legislative deadlock and partisan struggles, have long been blamed for voters’ frustration and antipathy.

The process leading up to Wednesday’s election stood as a microcosm of the tangled political interests and power struggles.

The rival parties failed to meet the deadline for enacting a law to determine the number of parliamentary seats and redraw constituencies. They managed to determine electoral rules just about a month before the election.

The stalemate reached its climax when both parties were engulfed in factional infighting over nominations for the election. The parties ended up “strategically” nominating candidates based on factional interests, countering their earlier pledges to screen candidates through internal primaries.

Those dropped from the nominations switched parties, leaving constituents confused, betrayed and left out.

“It seems as if political frustration is sweeping across the electorate,” said Lee Byoung-hoon, a sociology professor at Chung-Ang University. “Voters no longer expect the political process to find where they hurt and solve the problem. They view it as a way of protecting established politicians,” he said.

By Yeo Jun-suk (jasonyeo@heraldcorp.com)