Candidates Also Participate in Early and Main Voting
Recent Poll Shows Jeong Geun-sik and Jo Jeon-hyeok in a Tight Race
Public Criticism of Opponents Until the Day Before Voting
Yoon Ho-sang, Choi Bo-seon "Complete the Race Until the End"
Early voting for the Seoul Superintendent of Education by-election has begun, and the candidates have engaged in negative campaigning and competitive vote-gathering efforts to sway voters in the final stretch.
On the first day of early voting, the 11th, candidates for Seoul Superintendent of Education will cast their votes at various local centers. Candidate Jeong Geun-sik will vote at the Bukahyeon-dong Community Center in the morning. Candidates Yoon Ho-sang and Choi Bo-seon also plan to vote at the Seongsu-dong and Euljiro-dong Community Centers, respectively. Candidate Jo Jeon-hyeok will vote on the main election day, the 16th.
Recent media polls show a neck-and-neck race between candidates Jeong and Jo. According to a poll conducted by Every Research on the 6th and 7th of this month, commissioned jointly by News Spirit and Every News, surveying 1,000 men and women aged 18 and over residing in Seoul, in a hypothetical match-up for Seoul Superintendent of Education, Jeong received 31.1% and Jo 30.2%. Candidate Choi received 8.3%, and candidate Yoon 5.5%. (Wireless ARS automated response, margin of error ±3.1 percentage points at a 95% confidence level, response rate 4.4%, referenced from the Central Election Management Committee website)
The candidates focused on negative campaigning until the last moment. At a policy presentation press conference the day before, candidate Jo criticized Jeong, saying, "He claims to be the avatar of former Superintendent Jo Hee-yeon," and added, "Are we electing a superintendent from the Japanese colonial era?" In response, Jeong held an emergency press conference demanding that Jo clarify allegations of school violence, stating, "Without strict evidence or facts, he distorts and disparages the achievements of public education normalization over the past decade."
Each candidate also concentrated on vote-gathering efforts. On this day, Jeong appointed Kim Kyung-beom, a Seoul National University professor who had announced his candidacy last month but withdrew his preliminary candidacy, as co-chairman of the joint campaign committee and head of the university entrance policy team. The day before, endorsements continued from traditional cultural and arts organizations and former staff associations. Candidate Jo also devoted himself to policy activities, holding a policy meeting with the Seoul branch of the Korea Childcare Association on the same day. Earlier that day, Park Sun-young, director of the nonprofit organization Mulmangcho and a conservative candidate in the 2018 and 2022 Seoul Superintendent of Education elections, declared support for candidate Jo.
On the 7th, an official inspected the ballot papers printed at a printing company in Anyang-si, Gyeonggi-do, for the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education superintendent election ballot to be held on the 16th. Photo by Heo Younghan younghan@
Candidates Yoon and Choi, who are running independently without participating in the unification body, expressed their determination to complete the race. Yoon held an emergency press conference that day, emphasizing, "I once again declare that there will be no unification or withdrawal until October 16." Candidate Choi also stated at a previous policy presentation, "I want to finish the race until the end."
Early voting will be held across Seoul from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. on the 11th and 12th. The main election will take place on the 16th from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. Meanwhile, at 6:10 p.m. on the same day, EBS (Korea Educational Broadcasting System) will broadcast a live joint debate featuring all four candidates.
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