Gwangju Superintendent Lee Jeongseon Receives "Caution" for Election Law Violation Over Poll Post

It has been confirmed that Lee Jeongseon, Superintendent of Gwangju Office of Education, received a "caution" from the election commission for violating the Public Official Election Act by posting the results of a "suitability poll" online. The issue was that he posted the poll results on his own social media account and added promotional language.

Lee Jeongseon, Superintendent of Gwangju Office of Education, is reporting on work at the National Assembly Education Committee's audit held at Jeonbuk National University on the 22nd of last month. Photo by Yonhap News

The civic group "Citizens' Coalition for a Society Without Academic Cliques" announced on the 20th, "The Gwangju Metropolitan City Election Commission notified Superintendent Lee with a 'caution,' urging compliance with the law for violating Article 86, Paragraph 1, Subparagraph 3 of the Public Official Election Act." This provision prohibits conducting or publishing polls on support for a political party or candidate.

Superintendent Lee posted the results of the "2026 Gwangju Superintendent Suitability Poll," conducted on September 28-29, on his personal Facebook account on the 2nd of last month. The post featured promotional phrases such as "The superintendent who changed Gwangju!" and emphasized that he ranked first among the candidates. As of the end of last month, the post had received 235 "likes," 5 "shares," and 54 "comments," and it was confirmed that some employees of the Office of Education had also clicked "like."

The civic group reported the incident to the election commission, stating, "This is unrelated to educational purposes and constitutes an act that could influence the election." The commission determined that this was a violation of the election law.

The group also pointed out that earlier this year, ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday, 142 promotional banners for projects in the superintendent's name were posted at schools and affiliated organizations, resulting in another "caution." More recently, banners containing promotional language were installed at 197 locations throughout Gwangju, sparking further controversy.

The group stated, "Repeated controversies over election law violations undermine the political neutrality required of public officials and erode trust in Gwangju's education." The group urged, "Superintendent Lee should officially apologize to the public and refrain from repeating such actions."

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