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Presidential Candidacy Election Funds to Be Examined

Posted December. 13, 2001 09:24,   

한국어

National Election Commission (NEC) has set out a thorough examination as to whether or not the ruling and the opposition party runners for the party`s nomination for president violated the political funds law and the election law (preliminary campaigning) as they are spending lots of money on holding huge rallies and operating large-scale organizations and offices.

In particular, it was made known that NEC assigned an agent to each runner to draw up a report on the runner`s activity regarding the election law.

It was also made known that NEC would employ a `cumulative punishment system`, in which it brings a charge against or requests an investigation into illegal acts in the past that can be applicable to a measure of warning together with the current ones when violations of election law are uncovered clearly.

A NEC high-ranking official said on Dec. 12, "The runners for the party`s nomination for president are operating a large amount of funds and large-scale organizations and appealing even to ordinary voters." and explained, "It is NEC`s intention to instruct the runners in advance, to prevent them from being caught up in a charge of illegality after they are elected."

This official said, "To let the general public attend a party`s event and seek support from them may fall under a case of preliminary campaigning in the light of the election law, and to raise money over the limit for yearly find-raising (300 million won) and to receive money in disregard of the legal fund-raising process can be a violation of the political funds laws."

Meanwhile, NEC is considering expanding an examination over the details of spending of the government subsidy, which was confined to the party`s headquarters this year, to the party`s district chapters throughout the nation because not only the headquarters but also the district chapters are suspected of using the government subsidy illegally before the provincial and the presidential election.

The NEC Political Party Division Director Hong Soon-Doo explained, "The need for an examination of the district chapters has been raised as a result of thorough examinations of the ruling and the opposition party`s headquarters, which uncovered that they used the government subsidy laxly without considering its public nature."

In addition to this, NEC decided to execute strict control against politicians` offering money and goods during the end and the beginning of the year as the period of restriction on contribution begins on Dec. 15, six months prior to the next year`s provincial election.



Park Sung-Won swpark@donga.com