Green onion outcry: humble vegetable roils S. Korean vote

Cho Kuk, leader of the Rebuilding Korea Party, holds up green onions at a campaign event in Seoul on March 28, 2024 – Copyright AFP Anthony WALLACE

Kang Jin-kyu

Foreign policy, the economy, or Kim Jong Un’s nukes might be expected to top the agenda ahead of South Korea’s crucial parliamentary election on Wednesday. 

Instead, it’s green onions on the minds of voters and election officials, who have banned the humble allium from polling stations over fears of electoral interference.  

Used widely in South Korean cooking including for kimchi, green onions are dominating discussions ahead of the April 10 vote after an apparent gaff by the president sparked online outcry and turned the vegetable into an opposition rallying cry.

It all started March 18, when President Yoon Suk Yeol — whose party is trying to win back control of the 300-seat parliament — visited a grocery store in the capital Seoul, officially to check consumer prices, with food inflation a key concern ahead of the polls.

Looking at a bunch of green onions, Yoon said: “I’ve been to many markets and 875 won ($0.65) for this is a reasonable price.”

But green onions typically sell for three or four times that sum, and local media have reported that the store had specially discounted the vegetable ahead of the president’s visit.

Yoon’s comments sparked an avalanche of online memes, with the opposition quick to claim the episode showed the 63-year-old politician was out of touch, and opposition leaders soon brandishing green onions at campaign rallies.

After early voting started Friday, people also began posting photos of themselves holding green onions at polling stations after they cast their ballots, adding hashtags like #earlyvotedone #greenonions875won.

Early voting turnout has been high, official figures show, with some 13.8 million people out of a total 44.2 million eligible voters having already cast their votes.

But soon after the trend emerged, South Korea’s National Election Commission (NEC) banned green onions from polling stations, citing concerns of “election interference”.

Green onions will not be allowed in the vicinity of voting booths because they could “interfere with the election,” the NEC said in a statement Saturday.

“While people’s expression of political views should be respected to the maximum level, using a certain item as a means of expression other than for their original purpose has great potential to affect the election,” it said.

– Online backlash –

The NEC’s move has been widely mocked online, with more onion memes going viral on Korean-language social media over the weekend.

It has also set off a fresh rush to find green onion-themed memorabilia to bring to polling stations.

“I wasn’t initially thinking about the green onion issue, but after I heard about the ban, I bought a green onion hairband and I’m determined to wear it on election day,” one 36-year-old voter named Hyun Jung told AFP.

She said the NEC’s ban on green onions at polling stations was “too arbitrary to accept” and was “condescending” to voters like her.

“Should they also ban red or blue clothes then?” she asked, referring to the colours that represent Yoon’s People Power Party and the opposition Democratic Party, respectively.

“Or what about a Dior bag?” she added, referencing a controversy over Yoon’s wife, first lady Kim Keon Hee, apparently accepting a expensive luxury bag as a gift.

Adverts quickly began circulating on Korean-language sites offering hyper-realistic green onion headbands and keychains, giving interested voters a way to get around the ban.

While green onions themselves are restricted, “it is up to election officials on site to determine” whether green onion-themed items are allowed, an NEC official told AFP.

Political analyst Yum Seung-yul told AFP the NEC’s decision seemed a little hasty.

“The NEC’s ban is part of its discretionary role in the electoral process, but it comes across as too easily made,” Yum said.