K-drama stars IU, Lee Dong-wook dragged into South Korean ballot protest

A South Korean protest calling for a redo of last Wednesday’s local election over ballot shortages at polling stations has taken an unexpected turn, with some protesters demanding that actress and singer IU send coffee to the rally.The demand appears to stem from IU’s decision in 2024 to provide prepaid food and drinks for demonstrators calling for the impeachment of former president Yoon Suk-yeol over his failed martial law bid.The protesters calling for a new election, who are widely seen as standing on the opposite side of the political spectrum, are now demanding that the celebrity do the same for them.On Saturday, IU’s Instagram post from last September announcing the release of a new album was flooded with comments from protesters.Protesters hold a rally in Seoul on Saturday denouncing ballot paper shortages at some polling stations during Wednesday’s local election. Photo: Yonhap/EPA“We really want to drink coffee here at Jamsil,” one user wrote.Others joined in, writing, “Please send coffee to citizens robbed of their right to vote,” and “Why are you not sending coffee to conservatives and right-wingers?”According to an unofficial police estimate, more than 10,000 protesters gathered that day near a vote-counting centre at SK Olympic Handball Gymnasium in Seoul’s Songpa district, demanding that the election be held again.The rally was an extension of a protest that began at a polling station in Jamsil-dong" class="entity-link entity-location" data-entity-id="142257" data-entity-type="location">Jamsil-dong on election day. Protesters have since called the rally the “Jamsil Democratic Movement”.President Lee Jae Myung said on ⁠Monday that the ballot ⁠paper shortages dealt a serious blow to the country’s reputation as a model democracy, and he welcomed the protests.“It was just ridiculous,” Lee said at a ‌news conference. “It was probably something that’s hard for even people in a lesser-developed democracy to imagine that people couldn’t vote because they didn’t have ballot ⁠papers. Shocking.”The head of the National Election Commission (NEC), an independent ‌body that oversees all elections in the country, has resigned to take ⁠responsibility.Further ReadingThe commission has ⁠said it printed ballot papers for 73 per cent of the total eligible voters – calculated based on previous ‌turnout rates – and polling stations in some districts were slow to receive additional ballot papers after they started ‌to ‌run out.Lee has ordered a thorough investigation into the ballot paper shortage, ‌and the ruling Democratic Party said it planned to launch a national inquiry.The constitutional ⁠guarantee of independence given to the NEC had led to a complacency that ⁠exposed a fundamental problem in how the election process is managed, he said.Lawmaker Kim Eun-hye (right) of the main opposition People Power Party and poll officials guard ballot boxes as voters gather to block the movement of the boxes at the Jamsil polling station in Songpa-gu, Seoul, on Thursday. Photo: EPAThe incident did not point to the possibility of election fraud ‌as some critics had ‌claimed, Lee said, but there could be some people who were criminally responsible.Lee’s liberal Democratic Party posted a strong showing in the elections to pick provincial governors, mayors and local assembly members, while the opposition conservatives retained Seoul’s mayoralty.The calls for IU to send coffee are a reference to the celebrity’s past support for a political rally. In December 2024, IU prepaid for food and drinks at cafes and restaurants near Yeouido, where protesters were holding rallies calling for Yoon’s impeachment.The comment section soon turned into a heated debate, as calls for the celebrity to support citizens protesting the ballot shortage crisis were met with rebuttals from other online users.Similar demands also appeared on the social media accounts of other celebrities, including actor Lee Dong-wook, who had publicly expressed support for Yoon’s impeachment.Lee’s Instagram account was also flooded with comments asking for his stance on what users described as a violation of constitutionally protected voting rights. Others urged the actor to speak out on the matter.Additional reporting by Reuters