I’m voting for third parties from now on

South Korea’s local elections are coming up in about a month. Every election season, the media pours all its resources into convincing voters that there are only two choices: either the liberal party or the conservative party. This pattern has persisted for at least twenty years, ever since I started watching how elections unfold across the country. Candidates attract zealots the way K-pop idols do, while politics has turned into a religious battle. In “blue” areas, whoever becomes the liberal party’s candidate basically determines the winner. In “red” areas, the same thing happens because the vast majority of voters go to the booth and stamp the ballot for the party they feel affiliated with. This election might be slightly different because the conservative party is so unpopular in Korea right now. But most voters who have given up on the conservative party won’t even consider voting for a third party. For them, the election is simply a game between 1 and 2. For more than 10 years,…