South Korea kicked off its every-four year parliament general election on Thursday morning in the 13,167 polling stations all over the country.

The balloting started at 6:00 a.m. (2100 GMT Wednesday) and it will end 12 hours later on Thursday. Final results will be available around the night.

The election will decide who will be eligible for the 299 seatsof the 17th National Assembly, among which 243 will be directly elected, while the rest 56 will be decided by proportional representative

Some 35.6 million voters are qualified to cast their ballots inthe election. And according to a polls by the National Election Commission (NEC) on Tuesday, 77.2 percent respondents said they would "definitely" turn up at the voting stations, up 31.1 percentage points from a similar survey ahead of the previous general election in 2000.

Voter turnout in the 2000 election was 57.2 percent, a record low.

The polls also found 56 percent of the respondents had decided whom to vote for.

For the first time, a one-voter-two-ballot system was introduced Thursday's election. It means voters must cast two ballots, one for the preferred candidate in their constituency andanother for their favored party.

The second ballots can determine the number of lawmakers each party is assigned under the proportional representation system.

According to NEC, a total of 1,175 candidates registered to runthe 243 direct-elected parliament seats, while 190 candidates from14 political parties registered to compete with the 56 proportional representatives' position.

Major players in the race are pro-government Uri Party, biggestopposition Grand National Party (GNP), minor opposition MillenniumDemocratic Party (MDP). The others are including progressive Democratic Labor Party, conservative United Liberal Party and so on.