Adroit Supporting of the Election Campaign

As election campaigns are heating up, controversy is rising over the government intervention of local government chiefs. Not many cases conspicuously violating election law have been found yet, but there have been more than a few cases of local government chiefs supporting the parliamentary election candidates of their parties by adroit means, getting into wrangles everywhere.

--Supporting activities or not?

The secretariat of a local government chief in Daejeon is indirectly supporting the candidate of his party by reporting the chief’s secret schedule to the candidate. That is an example of campaigning while pretending to be in his company. The secretariat reports the local chief’s schedule to secretaries of the candidate by cell phone without including these schedules into an official one.

Uri Party raised the suspicion of government intervention, citing that Kyeonggi Governor Sohn Hak-kyu said, “How happy you are to bathe in the warm sun in front of the house built by Ms. Yook Young-su. Chairwoman Park Geun-hye is coming soon,” when he visited St. Lazarus sanatorium on April 5.

“There have been no complaints filed yet. Gov. Sohn’s participation in the event in itself has no problem, even though we have to examine exactly what he said,” the Kyeonggi Election Commission commented, making its standpoint clear.

The Grand National Party is provoking a dispute regarding Jeju Governor Woo Geun-min and South Jeju County Governor Kang Ki-kwon’s joining the Uri Party, saying, “It is violation of public service neutrality election law to join the Uri Party with 1,200 supporters.”

An agricultural cooperative chief, “Mr. K,” is supporting his relative, candidate “A” in spite of the election law provisions banning political activities of cooperative chiefs. The rival candidate “B” is protesting against this. However, the camp of the candidate “B” is taking great pains to file a complaint against high school senior “K” because it is concerned about the reverse effect on the alumni community.

--Control of the Commission

The National Election Commission announced that the number of the cases filed against government intervention was 19 on April 5, slightly reduced from the same period during the last general elections.

Typical examples of cases of government intervention exposed are the case of Gwangju Buk-gu ward head Kim Jae-gyun of the Uri Party, who allegedly issued and distributed about 60,000 ward pamphlets carrying articles idealizing the anti-impeachment demonstrations, and the case of Yangcheon-gu ward head Choo Jae-yeob of the GNP, who allegedly provided a member of the Chuncheong Province association with a meal. The unattached Jeju City Gov. Kim Tae-whan got a warning after paying for meals of eight persons amounting to 65,000 won.

“Cases of the government intervention are not marked yet so far, but when campaigning heats up, provincial chiefs belonging to parties are highly likely to get pressured into becoming involved in the campaigning,” said a National Election Committee official.