Lee Ju-ho and Park Sun-young unify foundation through public opinion survey... Jo Hee-yeon to announce candidacy next month

Selected by 100% Poll Primary Early Next Month
Key Issue: Candidates Jo Jeon-hyeok and Jo Young-dal Joining
Superintendent Jo Hee-yeon Plans to Announce Candidacy Next Month

Conservative and moderate preliminary candidates for Seoul Superintendent of Education will unify their candidacies based on public opinion poll results early next month.

Former Minister of Education, Science and Technology Lee Ju-ho and former Dongguk University professor Park Seon-young held a press conference on the 27th at the Francisco Education Center in Jung-gu, where they announced an agreement on the method and schedule for unifying their candidacies. The two candidates agreed to select a single candidate through a public opinion poll primary and to jointly persuade other candidates to participate in the poll primary for selecting the unified candidate. They also formed a working committee to discuss the timing and method of the primary and urged other candidates to participate.

A representative from Lee Ju-ho’s campaign said, "We agreed to select the candidate through a 100% public opinion poll method and aim to conclude it in early May," adding, "We will entrust a polling agency to conduct a survey of about 1,000 people." Preliminary candidate Park Seon-young said, "We want to bring together all the currently fragmented superintendent candidates to unify fairly and transparently," and added, "I sincerely hope this new phase will reset education in the Republic of Korea and become a historic opportunity to plant hope for the future."

However, the two candidates selected through another unification organization have no intention of participating in this unification. Preliminary candidate Jo Young-dal said about the poll-based unification, "The superintendent election should be entrusted to the education community, and legitimacy can be secured through unification starting from the education community," and added, "I hope normalization through various means such as debates involving relevant parties, not through public opinion polls."

Even if Lee Ju-ho and Park Seon-young succeed in unifying, if all three candidates run, it could result in vote splitting among conservative candidates as in the 2018 election. In that election, current Seoul Superintendent of Education Cho Hee-yeon won with 46.6% of the vote, while Park Seon-young received 36.2% and Jo Young-dal 17.3% respectively.

Cho Hee-yeon, who is seeking a third term, is expected to register as a preliminary candidate early next month. He plans to announce his candidate registration and declaration schedule around the 29th. Currently, in the progressive camp, former Korean Teachers and Education Workers Union (Korean acronym: Jeonkyogyo) Vice Chairman Kang Shin-man and former Seoul City Council member Choi Bo-seon have declared their candidacies. Recently, Superintendent Cho said, "I have no other path. In a situation where even a ministerial candidate has mentioned reversing the autonomous private high school policy, I believe the task of preserving the existing educational innovation path remains with me."

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