"Let's Eat at the Cafeteria" Lee Junseok, Is the Most Invited School a Women's University?

Platform 'Haksik Meokja' for Direct Communication with University Students
Dongduk Women's University Chosen, but Most Voters Are Men in Their 30s and 40s

Reform Party presidential candidate Lee Junseok has launched the platform "Haksik Meokja Lee Junseok" to communicate directly with university students. The idea is to invite Lee to have a meal and converse with students, and the university currently ranked first is Dongduk Women's University. Ironically, however, it turns out that most of the respondents who selected Dongduk Women's University are male.

Reform Party presidential candidate Lee Junseok introduced the platform "Haksik Meokja Lee Junseok" to communicate directly with university students. Photo by Yonhap News

On the 25th, Lee Junseok's campaign introduced the "Haksik Meokja Lee Junseok" platform, stating, "Now, you can decide the presidential candidate's schedule," and "From now on, I will have lunch near university campuses." After logging in with KakaoTalk on the website, users can select the school they want Lee to visit, and voting is allowed even if the school is not their own.

Currently, Dongduk Women's University is ranked first as the school that has "invited Lee the most." The "special" connection between Lee and Dongduk Women's University began last year. In 2024, conflicts arose on campus due to discussions about transitioning to a coeducational system, leading to protests. At the time, Lee criticized, "The essence of the Dongduk Women's University incident is not a lack of communication, but rather the 'barbaric violence' of expressing opinions through anti-intellectual and anti-civilizational acts even before attempting communication." He added, "When their opinions were not accepted, the choice of extreme violence in the Seoul Western District Court riot and the destruction of public property at Dongduk Women's University by uncivilized means are identical in both method and essence."

'Let's Eat School Food Lee Junseok' Voting Status. Let's Eat School Food Lee Junseok Homepage

Dongduk Women's University immediately pushed back. The "Dongduk Women's University Student Union" issued a statement the day after Lee expressed his opinion, titled "We Condemn Reform Party's Lee Junseok for Framing the Democratic Dongduk Protest as Violence and Riot." The statement said, "We clarify that the essence of the Dongduk Women's University protest lies in the university administration's attitude of not even attempting to reflect students' opinions, resulting in a lack of communication," and added, "We strongly condemn Representative Lee Junseok for his shameless act of continuously framing the current situation as violence and riot."

As of the morning of the 26th, Dongduk Women's University is in a commanding lead with 708 votes. This is double the 374 votes for Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, which is in second place. What is interesting is that, among the 708 votes for Dongduk Women's University, only 32 are from women in their 20s. This means that over 95%, or 676 voters, are male.

According to statistics released by Lee Junseok the previous day, out of about 340 applicants who selected Dongduk Women's University, the vast majority?296?were male. More than 200 votes came from people in their 30s and 40s, which is outside the typical age range for university students. Specifically, 123 applicants were born in the 1980s (late 30s to 40s), and 100 were born in the 1990s (late 20s to 30s). Attention is now focused on whether Lee will visit Dongduk Women's University despite these unusual results.