4,000 winners targeted by election complaints

The National Election Commission said complaints or lawsuits have been filed against nearly 4,000 winners in last Thursday's local elections. Winners could be stripped of their seats if found guilty of illegal campaigning.

Just over 1,000 complaints were filed after the 1998 election.

The Daegu District Prosecutors Office on Monday reported that 4 percent of the 31 candidates elected in Daegu and North Gyeongsang province were either under investigation or indicted on charges of vote buying. In Gangwon province 7 of the 18 elected county chiefs and mayors have been targeted for investigation. One mayor in the province was indicted on a charge of embezzling money from the city budget to pay off voters.

In South Jeolla province two elected county chiefs were accused of passing 50 million won ($40,551) each to campaign workers to buy votes.

Candidates ordered to pay a fine of more than 1 million won or who are sentenced to prison for illegal campaigning will have their victories invalidated.

An election can also be invalidated if the candidates' budget manager, spouse or a family member is imprisoned for election law violations.

"We expect more candidates to be charged as we plan to hand over our probes into illegal campaigning to the prosecutors office after July 13, the deadline for candidates to hand in their expenditure reports," a National Election Commission official said.

The Supreme Prosecutors Office has received complaints from candidates who opposed Seoul Mayor-elect Lee Myung-bak, Governor-elect Kim Hyuk-kyu of South Gyeongsang province, Governor-elect Woo Keun-min of Jeju province, Busan Mayor-elect Ahn Sang-young, Incheon Mayor-elect Ahn Sang-soo and Governor-elect Lee Won-jong of North Chungcheong province.

by Hwang Sun-yoon, Chun Chang-whan