South Korea’s presidential election springs a last-minute surprise

KISSING BABIES, playing up local connections and framing elections in existential terms are familiar tactics of politicians everywhere. Yoon Seok-youl, the main opposition candidate for the presidency of South Korea, deployed all three during a recent rally in Gangneung, a city of some 200,000 people on the country’s north-eastern coast. Once he was done posing for the obligatory picture with a bemused toddler, Mr Yoon reminisced about childhood holidays spent in the city. Then he adopted a more solemn tone: the presidential election on March 9th, he said, was not a matter of party allegiance but about whether South Korea would “live or die”.