People Power Party Visits Election Commission in Protest Following KBS Visit

"Election Commission Issues Favorable Decisions for Ruling Party and Repeatedly Makes Arbitrary Decisions Without Principles"

On the 24th, one day before the official campaign for the April 7 Seoul mayoral by-election, officials are separating the candidates' election posters at the Jongno District Election Commission in Seoul. Photo by Hyunmin Kim kimhyun81@

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Jun-yi] The People Power Party's Seoul mayoral election campaign committee visited the Seoul Metropolitan Election Commission in protest, accusing it of managing the election unfairly and with bias ahead of the April 7 by-election.

On the morning of the 31st, the People Power Party's campaign committee visited the Seoul Metropolitan Election Commission located in Jongno-gu, Seoul, urging it to correct unfair and biased actions and to fulfill its responsibility for a fair election. Before the protest visit, the campaign committee stated, "The most important aspects of election management are fairness and neutrality," adding, "However, in this April 7 by-election, the Election Commission has been unusually issuing 'decisions favorable to the ruling party and arbitrary decisions without principles' repeatedly."

Previously, the Seoul Metropolitan Election Commission was embroiled multiple times in controversies over bias during the election campaign process.

The Seoul Metropolitan Election Commission placed purple wrapping advertisements (vehicle surface advertisements) encouraging voting in the by-election on 150 taxis in the Seoul area. However, when the People Power Party raised concerns that this advertisement was similar to the Democratic Party's party color, blue, the Election Commission halted the promotion to quell the controversy.

There were criticisms that Seoul Metropolitan Government's traffic broadcast campaign "Il (1) Hapsida" ("Let's unite") evoked the ruling party candidate's number 1, but the Seoul Election Commission concluded that it was difficult to see this as a violation of the Public Official Election Act. Additionally, when the Seoul Mayor Sexual Violence Incident Joint Action, composed of women's organizations, attempted to run an election campaign using the phrase "Why hold a by-election?" the Election Commission intervened, citing potential violations of election law.

In response, the People Power Party stated, "Looking at these series of situations, there is a strong suspicion that the Election Commission is applying election law standards favorably to the ruling party and unfavorably to the opposition," and added, "The recent controversies over the Election Commission's fairness and neutrality are self-inflicted."

Those who participated in the visit included Yoo Kyung-jun, co-chief of the campaign headquarters; Lee Young, head of the Big Data Strategy Analysis Headquarters; Jeon Ju-hye and Yoon Ki-chan, co-heads of the Legal Support Team; and Kim Jae-sik, head of the Fair Election Promotion Headquarters.

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