The 16-day official campaign for the third round of regional autonomy elections, slated for June 13, will commence Tuesday with two days of candidate registration. The National Election Commission estimated some 11,000 people are running to fill 4,415 posts including 16 city mayors and provincial governors, 232 heads of local authorities and ward offices and 682 large province and 3,485 local civil service heads.
The Grand National Party is fielding candidates for all 16 mayor and governor posts, while the Millennium Democratic Party is competing in 10; excluding Daegu, Daejeon, Ulsan, South and North Chungcheong, and Gyeongbuk provinces; and the United Liberal Democrats will run in Daejeon and South and North Chungcheong provinces. The Democratic Labor Party and Socialist Party of Korea will run in seven and three contests.
The NEC also announced illegal activity had increased to nearly eight times that of the 1998 local elections, with some 5,114 cases to date of which 277 have been referred to the prosecution; 166 currently under investigation; and 2,088 were warned.
(Heo Yong-beom, heo@chosun.com)
