Lawmakers with an Average of 119 Million Won in Donations

Health and Welfare Minister Rhyu Si-min, a ruling party lawmaker, raised the most funds, 197.95 million won among lawmakers last year.

According to the “2005 incomes and expenses of parties and supporters’ organizations” report released by the National Election Commission (Chairman Sohn Ji-yeol) on March 9, Minister Rhyu topped the list with an average donation per contribution of 17,883 won.

Funds raised by 295 lawmakers amounted to 35.2 billion won. On average, each lawmaker received 119 million won, 23 million won less than in 2004.

An astounding 78 lawmakers raised more than 150 million won, the upper limit of an annual donation. Moreover, the average donation was 124,000 won, implying that there were many petty money contributors.

The total funds raised by each party’s headquarters, local branches and lawmaker supporters’ organizations in 2005 was 44.2 billion won, 545.4 million less than in the previous year.

The Uri Party raised the most with 18.7 billion won, followed by the Grand National Party with 15.7 billion won, the Democratic Labor Party raised 7.4 billion won, and the Democratic Party with 1.4 billion won.

The number of major donators who contributed more than 1.2 million won a year to lawmaker supporters’ organizations totaled 3,354, most of whom were entrepreneurs and self-employed.

Jung-Hun Kim In-Jik Cho jnghn@donga.com cij1999@donga.com