People Power Party leader Jang Dong-hyeok speaks at a supreme council meeting at the National Assembly on Aug. 13. [Yonhap]
People Power Party leader Jang Dong-hyeok speaks at a supreme council meeting at the National Assembly on Aug. 13. [Yonhap]

The People Power Party has decided to file election-nullity lawsuits over the Seoul mayoral race and other contests from the June 3 local elections.

Speaking to reporters after a general assembly of lawmakers Thursday, floor spokesperson Choi Su-jin said the party would file formal objections over the regional government head races and proportional representation contests in Seoul, Gyeonggi Province and Incheon, and would pursue election-nullity lawsuits targeting the Songpa-gu district chief, local and proportional district council members, and Seoul Metropolitan Assembly members across four electoral districts in Songpa-gu.

Choi said the party chose those areas because party leader Jang Dong-hyeok had personally argued the case in oral proceedings there, and because allegations of ballot shortages and electronic manipulation were judged to be most serious.

She added that the party planned to file the objections by Aug. 28, the deadline for bringing election lawsuits.

The National Election Commission rejected the PPP's appeal over the Seoul mayoral election on Aug. 12, ruling that violations of election regulations could not be seen as having affected the outcome. The PPP had previously pledged to pursue election-nullity lawsuits through legal channels if the commission rejected its appeal, and Thursday's announcement follows through on that commitment.

After the commission's rejection, Jang said at a supreme council meeting on Aug. 13 that the outcome had been foreseeable from the moment the National Election Commission sent a circular to provincial election commissions urging them to issue rejection opinions on the appeals. "Even with ballot shortages and electronic manipulation laid bare, they have handed down a 'self-issued pardon' — rejecting the appeals on the grounds that we failed to prove the results were affected," he said.


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