United Future Party "Election interference occurring nationwide... Will visit the 'ruling party-biased' Election Commission to protest" (Comprehensive)

Park Hyung-jun, Co-Chairman of the United Future Party's Central Election Countermeasures Committee, is attending the Central Election Countermeasures Committee meeting held at the National Assembly on the 24th and delivering opening remarks. Photo by Yoon Dong-joo doso7@

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Ji-eun] The United Future Party has decided to strongly respond to election interference by civic groups and to visit the Election Commission in protest. They also raised suspicions of 'government-controlled elections,' claiming that the police and the Election Commission are blatantly siding with the ruling party instead of cracking down on such election interference.

Park Hyung-joon, co-chairman of the United Future Party's joint election campaign committee, told reporters immediately after the campaign committee meeting on the 24th, "The central election committee leadership has decided to visit the Election Commission in protest on the 25th." This is due to the Election Commission's failure to function properly despite illegal election interference against United Future Party candidates occurring nationwide. He said, "The threat of government-controlled elections is increasing significantly," adding, "The police, the Election Commission, and local governments controlled by the Democratic Party of Korea are openly siding with the ruling party."

Lee Jin-bok, head of the general election campaign headquarters, also said, "Some civic groups such as Daejin-yeon and the Pro-Jo Kuk Solidarity are excessively interfering with election campaigns nationwide," and added, "We have urged the authorities to prevent recurrence, but if they do not correct this despite our stern warning, the central election committee will make a serious decision."

The regional chairpersons attending the meeting on that day reported illegal election interference occurring on the ground. Oh Se-hoon, Seoul regional election committee chairman, said, "Although Daejin-yeon is deliberately interfering with the election, the police only watched the election site for more than 30 minutes, making it impossible to shake off the strong suspicion that they 'came under instructions.'" He added, "When I held a one-person protest, only then did the police come out and hastily shift responsibility to the Election Commission, saying they were 'investigating.'" Running for Gwangjin-eul, he was interfered with by university students belonging to Daejin-yeon during his campaign, and when the police failed to respond properly, he held a one-person protest in front of the Gwangjin Police Station.

Kim Ki-hyun, chairman of the Busan-Ulsan-Gyeongnam election committee, said, "In the last local election, the ruling party intensively intervened in the election and conducted covert investigations. Ulsan is a representative case, but similar incidents occurred in the nearby Gyeongnam region." He added, "Once a regime tastes this, it is hard to resist the temptation of election interference, so we must keep a close watch to prevent repeated covert investigations and election interference."

Kim Tae-woo, a preliminary candidate for Seoul Gangseo-eul, revealed that there was election interference by ruling party supporters. He said, "On the 21st, I handed over to the police a person who continuously filmed me illegally while I was greeting residents in Gangseo-gu," and exposed, "There are about 80 monitoring team members from the Democratic Party in Gangseo-gu, and one of them was the person who conducted the illegal filming." He also said that the day before, while greeting at Yangcheon Hyanggyo Station, he was interfered with by verbal abuse and stated, "I plan to submit a complaint to the prosecution to thoroughly identify the masterminds."

He also pointed out the Election Commission's bias toward the ruling party. Lee, the head of the general headquarters, said, "The Election Commission applies a double standard, being strict with the United Future Party and lenient with the Democratic Party of Korea." He added, "Go Min-jung, a candidate running in Gwangjin-eul, had falsely listed her academic background on social networking services (SNS) until the end of last month and posted images distorting recent poll results to favor herself, but the Election Commission has not responded to this."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.