19 lawmakers filed for false reports

The National Election Commission (NEC) said Tuesday that 19 lawmakers were found to have spent more election campaign money than legally allowed or made false reports about their spending in the previous general elections. The election watchdog, chaired by Justice Yoo Ji-Dam, which has conducted an inspection of the lawmakers¡¯ campaign money, said it filed criminal complaints against the suspected lawmakers, their chief campaigners or chief accountants with the prosecutor`s office or asked it to investigate them. The lawmakers include Rep. Kim Young-Bae, a standing advisor of the Millennium Democratic Party and Rep. Min Bong-Gi of the Grand National Party, an NEC spokesman said.

The 19 lawmakers break down to 12 from the Millennium Democratic Party and seven from the Grand National Party.

MDP lawmakers, besides standing advisor Kim, are Song Young-Gil, Lee Yoon-Soo, Jang Sung-Min, Song Suk-Chan, Lee Chang-Bok, Jeon Yong-Hak, Chang Jung-Un, Lee Ho-Woong, Park Sang-Kyu, Lee Hee-Kyu and Lee Jung-Il.

GNP lawmakers are Kim Yong-Hak, Kwon Oh-Eul, Kim Hyung-O, Park Jong-Keun, Lee Yoon-Sung and Kim Boo-Gyum, according to the NEC spokesman.

Many of them were found by the NEC to have offered illegal campaign money amounting to some ten million won to their core campaign workers, including those in charge of ¡°dong,¡± the lowest administrative echelon, or to have spent money exceeding the legally-set expenses.

Political observers said that the elections of many of them are expected to be nullified for violating the election law.

In the 15th general elections four years ago, the NEC took legal action against a total of 20 incumbent lawmakers, but the prosecutor¡¯s office did not prosecute all of them.

An NEC official said that most of the lawmakers against which the criminal complaints were lodged are expected to be indicted by the prosecutors since the NEC has secured evidence on the illegal offering of money for campaign workers¡¯ activities.

In case the prosecutors do not prosecute them, the NEC will make use of the system for the application for the court injunction, which was newly introduced by the revision of the election law, he said.

Meanwhile, the NEC found in the course of its inspection that a total of 1,565 candidates and their chief accountants violated the law.

The election watchdog filed criminal complaints against 157, asked law-enforcement authorities to investigate 123, issued warnings to 1,284 and notified one of his election violation.

By party, the MDP topped the list with 561 violations, followed by the GNP¡¯s 350, United Liberal Democrats¡¯ 214, and other parties¡¯ 219 and 221 violations by independent candidates.