From Pyongyang to Gangnam: Ex-North Korean diplomat Thae Yong Ho now on the ballot in Seoul

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SEOUL (AFP) - For decades, Thae Yong Ho served the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, rising to become Pyongyang's deputy ambassador to London before defecting.. Read more at straitstimes.com.

SEOUL - For decades, Thae Yong Ho served the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, rising to become Pyongyang's deputy ambassador to London before defecting.If he wins his constituency in Gangnam, the wealthy Seoul district made famous by rapper Psy, Thae will become the first former Northern official ever to be directly elected to South Korea's Parliament.

Voting styles are radically different on either side of the Demilitarised Zone that divides the neighbours - which are technically still at war. The April 15 vote will elect a new Parliament through a mix of first-past-the-post constituencies like Thae's and proportional representation. Thae has since become a prominent and outspoken critic of North Korea and the engagement approach pursued by the South's Moon.

In South Korea's"bottom up" democracy, he said, each individual voter's support had to be secured"one by one". The exercise has all the trappings of democracy elsewhere, from electoral rolls to sealed ballot boxes, but in keeping with Pyongyang's enduring slogan of"single-minded unity", there is only one approved name on each paper.

 

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