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Election commissions plagued by nepotism, state audit agency finds

Published: 27 Feb. 2025, 16:38

LEE SOO-JUNG
[email protected]

Entrance of the National Election Commission in Gwacheon, Gyeonggi in 2023 [NEWS1]

The Board of Audit and Inspection of Korea (BAI) on Thursday announced that state election commissions violated employment protocols 878 times between 2013 and 2022, including preferential hiring of senior officials' children.

A total of 75 percent of all the violations were from Korea's 17 provincial and provincial-level city election commissions, including 662 violations of employment regulations regarding the hiring of experienced workers by offering jobs to high-ranking officials' children and manipulating screening results.

The National Election Commission's (NEC) national headquarters violated employment rules 216 times in 124 recruitment opportunities for those with prior work experience.

It appeared that unfair hiring practices were observed in hiring experienced workers as they are not required to take the state-run exams that entry- and junior-level employees must take.

The BAI accused the election commissions of “significantly harming the fairness in hiring public officials” by offering exclusive employment opportunities to commission officials’ children and modifying qualifications favorable to specific persons.

The NEC and regional Incheon election commission opened two seats for experienced candidates for an ex-NEC secretary general’s children even when they had no vacancy. They modified the screening criteria and let acquainted officials interview the candidate.

The audit report confirmed that the NEC headquarters itself was concerned about potential nepotism privileging the children of senior election agency officials when it recruited several experienced workers a year before the previous presidential and local elections in 2022.

Then-staffers in the human resources department wrote internal messages warning that hiring experienced workers “could turn nasty” because senior officials "have their eyes on opportunities to bring their children and close acquaintances" into the commission, the report said.

At the regional level, an adult child of a team manager-level official at the South Gyeongsang election commission was hired after their parent informed its hiring department of the application and inquired about updates throughout the hiring process.

The audit board also accused the hiring officials of committing unfair practices by conducting only internal reviews of preferred candidates’ applications, despite legal provisions mandating that outside officials and non-officials review applications.

In South Jeolla, an official manipulated interview evaluations by making external interviewers sign blank assessment documents and then filling them in internally to ensure former Secretary General Park Chan-jin’s children could be hired.

Staffers from the election commission in Seoul review ballots in central Seoul on Oct. 14 last year. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]

Poor recruitment management also helped unqualified candidates earn positions even when their prior experience did not satisfy the minimum requirements.

Last April, the state watchdog announced its interim audit results and asked prosecutors to investigate 27 incumbent and former election commission officials tied to unfair hiring practices, including former NEC deputy Secretary General Song Bong-sup, suspected of providing a preferential hiring opportunity to his daughter.

The BAI also disclosed inappropriate labor practices related to sick leaves and their salaries.

One mid-level official at the Gangwon election commission traveled abroad 124 times for 817 days without declaring their intent to take a leave of absence from 2015 to 2023. Another official from the Jeju commission exploited unpermitted absences and false sick leaves to travel overseas for 131 days, according to the audit report.

Some 51 auditors inspected the election commissions nationwide between July and November 2023. The audit results were finalized on Tuesday.

On the same day, the Constitutional Court ruled that the BAI inspection “infringed on the NEC’s independent authority” in a competence dispute between the two state agencies.

The Constitutional Court said the BAI, as a presidential institution, could undermine the fairness and credibility of election management if the audit board oversees the NEC, an independent constitutional institution.

The ruling suggests that BAI audits are merely self-regulatory devices limited to the executive branch and that the NEC should be excluded from such audits, as are the National Assembly, the courts and other constitutional bodies.

BY LEE SOO-JUNG, KIM JUN-YOUNG [[email protected]]