It Makes a Difference to the Sheep

Others have already noted the campaign by "Civil Action for 2004 General Elections" to give politicians red cards of disapproval. The groups list has burgeoned to 208 candidates.

Civil Action for 2004 General Elections, an alliance of advocacy groups, has recently announced a list of 208 candidates whom it vows to defeat in the upcoming elections. It has also selected another eight who, it claims, are unqualified to be elected by proportional representation.

The alliance believes the blacklisted candidates are too corrupt to be elected, or that their voting records and other performances fail to meet the standards it has established. Its campaign is not prohibited unless it exceeds legal bounds

Of course when one digs a bit deeper one finds that the vast majority of the blacklisted (red carded?) politicians are of one of two categories: either they were blacklisted last time around (a sign that the Alliance's campaign was less than successful in the previous election) or that they voted for impeachment of Roh. I think that the phenomenon of non-partisan political organizations getting involved in ROK politics is generally a welcome sign of a growing civil society. However, in this case, I suspect that the Alliance has cast its net too widely and will, therefore, find its significance and influence on the elections to be considerably diluted.