Fifty-three Elected Candidates under Investigation for Violating Election Law

The Supreme Public Prosecutors’ Office Department of Public Security (chief Hong Kyung-sik) announced that at present, 53 elected lawmakers of the 17th general election have been indicted for breaching the election law and that seven spouses of the winners and a campaign chairman are also under investigation.

According to the prosecutors, Uri Party’s Kim Meng-gon and Kim Ki-suk and the United Liberal Democrat’s Ryu Kyen-chan, newly elected candidates, were recently indicted and are awaiting trial. The Grand National Party’s successful candidate, Hong Moon-pyo, already received a 500,000 won fine.

Furthermore, two elected individuals, who were indicted for violation of election law, received a disposition to not institute public action. Looking at the reasons for their indictment, distributing illegal promoting materials was the highest with 21 candidates, 13 for giving out money and valuables, 12 for black-and-white promotion, three for building and running organizations similar to the campaign office, one for reporting a false education level, and another one for campaign violation.

The spouses’ reasons were: three for giving out money and valuables, three for distributing illegal promoting materials, one for building and running organizations similar to campaign office, and one for other reasons.

The prosecution speculates a rise in the number of elected being indicted as there is a tendency for increase in the accusation after the election. Thus, there is a lookout for a mass election annulment.

On the other hand, the prosecutor indicted 2,096 general election illegalities and prosecuted 508 of them. The prosecutor said that with report incentives, the disclosure of election illegalities has risen enormously compared to the 16th election, however, the report rate of major crimes have fallen.

The current election law stipulates an election annulment for those charged with a larger than 1,000,000 won fine for violating election law. It also states that the invalidity of the election applies to those whose campaign chairman, accounting representative, spouse, and direct ancestors had received a larger than 3,000,000 won fine for impeaching political funding law or an act of endowment.

jin0619@donga.com