Hong Jun-pyo "Expo Close Call Falsely Reported by Staff Should Be Disciplined"

Regarding South Korea's significant loss to Saudi Arabia in the competition to host the 2030 World Expo, Daegu Mayor Hong Joon-pyo criticized, saying, "Those aides who falsely reported it as a close race must be identified and disciplined (懲治·to govern by disciplinary action)."

On the 1st, Mayor Hong pointed out on his social media (SNS), "Two days before the Expo announcement, a major daily newspaper ran a headline '49 to 51, aiming for a last-minute comeback,' spreading false information to the entire nation. The aides who falsely reported the president returning from the U.S. that it was a close race and sent him on a business trip to Paris again within a day?shouldn't we identify and discipline them?"

At the Daegu-Gyeongbuk New Airport Investment Briefing held on the 20th at the Fairmont Hotel in Seoul, Hong Joon-pyo, Mayor of Daegu, is delivering a greeting regarding the new airport plan. Photo by Heo Young-han younghan@

The previous day, Saudi Arabia won the Expo hosting rights with a comfortable margin, securing 119 votes out of 165 countries participating in the first round of voting at the 173rd General Assembly of the International Bureau of Expositions (BIE) held at the 'Palais des Congr?s' on the outskirts of Paris, France. South Korea received only 29 votes.

However, some media outlets reported the vote as a "close race" until just before the results were announced, which Mayor Hong attributes to the problem with the presidential office aides. He said, "Such incompetent and sycophantic aides disrupt the country and ruin the administration," adding, "The problem is not the failure to host the Expo but the ignorance and incompetence of the related agencies that failed to properly perceive global trends."

He also added, "By the end of the year, we should find a breakthrough in domestic politics, which is currently blocked by Lee Jae-myung, leader of the Democratic Party, and Kim Gi-hyeon, leader of the People Power Party."