Governor Park Wansu of Gyeongnam Achieves Top 'SA' Grade for Pledge Implementation for Four Consecutive Years

Park Wansu, Governor of Gyeongsangnam-do, has once again received the highest grade, "SA," in the "2026 Evaluation of Pledge Implementation and Information Disclosure by Metropolitan and Provincial Governors of the 8th Popularly Elected Term," conducted by the Korea Manifesto Implementation Headquarters. This marks the fourth consecutive year that he has achieved the top grade.

The Manifesto Headquarters completed a 90-day evaluation based on pledge implementation data as of the end of December 2025 and announced the final results for all metropolitan and provincial governments nationwide on April 1.

The evaluation covered five areas: ▲Completion of pledge implementation ▲Achievement of 2025 targets ▲Resident communication ▲Web communication ▲Consistency with pledges.

Park Wansu, Governor of Gyeongnam Province. Photo by Se-ryeong Lee

According to the Headquarters’ evaluation, Gyeongsangnam-do received the SA grade (93 points or higher) in the comprehensive assessment and achieved the same grade in both the pledge implementation completion and 2025 target achievement categories.

It was assessed that Governor Park demonstrated systematic and effective provincial administration, as evidenced by strong performance across both the overall score and the individual categories.

In particular, "achieving the SA grade for four consecutive years" is considered a rare accomplishment nationwide.

Among the 17 metropolitan and provincial governments across the country, only five—including Seoul, Gyeonggi, Chungnam, Jeonnam, Gyeongbuk, and Gyeongnam—have maintained the highest grade every year throughout the 8th popularly elected term. Gyeongsangnam-do has consistently held the top grade since the first evaluation in 2023.

Of the 75 pledges Governor Park made, 10 have been completed and 51 are being continuously implemented after initial execution, meaning that 61 pledges—representing 81.33%—have been completed or are currently being implemented.

Thirteen pledges are proceeding as planned, and one is partially underway; none have been discarded or put on hold.

The target achievement rate for 2025 is 100%, with all individually set pledge tasks being implemented as planned.

The method of pledge management—setting detailed annual targets and ensuring that none are omitted in implementation—was cited as the reason for these results.

During the 8th term, Gyeongsangnam-do has managed the implementation process and results by establishing practical rules for pledge management, operating a randomly selected Residents’ Pledge Evaluation Panel each year, holding quarterly review meetings chaired by the governor and vice governor, and disclosing information on the provincial website every six months.

On the main page of the provincial website, there is a separate "Pledge·Manifesto" section that provides at-a-glance access to the pledge implementation schedule, budget plan, target achievement status, and evaluation results.

The Manifesto Headquarters stated, "An election pledge is an employment contract between the candidate and the voter," and added, "We will use this evaluation as a reference for setting the pledge evaluation standards for the 6.3 local elections."

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