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With one day before vote, parties warn candidates and campaign staff against last-minute gaffes

Published: 02 Jun. 2026, 16:36 Updated: 02 Jun. 2026, 17:45

Left: Democratic Party leader Jung Chung-rae delivers remarks in Jeonju, North Jeolla. People Power Party leader Jang Dong-hyeok speaks at the People Power Party's Daegu chapter in Suseong District, Daegu, on May 25. [NEWS1]

With the June 3 local elections a day away, both of Korea's major parties have sent the same message down the ranks: Don't become the story.

The ruling Democratic Party (DP) and the opposition People Power Party (PPP) have both circulated notices urging their candidates and campaign staff to steer clear of any careless remarks in the final stretch. The warnings stem from a fear that with the number of tightly contested races growing, a slip on the eve of the vote could tip a race toward defeat.

The PPP on Monday sent a notice to the heads of its metropolitan and provincial chapters, its local party councils' election committees and its candidates, instructing them to “refrain from words and actions that fall short of public expectations while appealing for votes.”

It also urged candidates to “take particular care, since any legal violation caught through careless behavior would hurt the entire campaign.” The party said it had sent similar notices several times last month, warning that “small words or actions can change the course of an election.”

“We must never let a last-minute mistake break our drive to close the gap,” a senior PPP official said.

The DP also shifted on Monday into what it called a “60-hour emergency operation” of its central election committee situation room, sending candidates and party officials guidance to “encourage voting while complying with the Public Official Election Act.”

People take photos of slips of paper with voting stamps to prove they voted for the local elections on May 29, the first day of the early voting period. [YONHAP]

The Public Official Election Act bars active campaigning from the day before the vote and penalizes false or improperly personal statements about candidates.

The DP went as far as setting an “all-member code of conduct” that included a pledge to “thoroughly guard against inappropriate words and behavior that could come across as complacent or arrogant.”

“From the very bottom, the members, to the very top, the leader, everyone is keeping a humble posture,” a DP official said.

The caution has peaked not only at party headquarters but in the individual candidate camps, which are treating recent missteps as cautionary tales: the oppa — a term women use for an older brother — controversy surrounding Ha Jung-woo, the DP's candidate in the National Assembly by-election in Busan's Buk-A constituency, and the “kiss” controversy surrounding Woo Hyoung-chan, the DP's candidate for Yangcheon District chief in Seoul.

Ha and DP leader Jung got in trouble when Jung had asked an elementary school girl to call Ha "oppa," while Woo similarly had asked a baby to kiss him.

“The kiss controversy had a huge impact on voters,” an official from Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon's re-election campaign said.

Ha Jung-woo, the Democratic Party's candidate in the National Assembly by-election for Busan's Buk-A constituency, holds a press conference at the Busan Metropolitan Council in Yeonje District, Busan, on June 1. [YONHAP]

“We've again instructed everyone that we must treat voters with care right to the end of the campaign,” said an official working with a DP candidate in the Yeongnam region.

“We're being careful, over and over, about last-minute verbal slips so that no damaging news comes out.”

The parties have issued these eleventh-hour warnings because they have concluded that an offensive remark can do serious damage at the polls once it becomes a public talking point.

Chung Dong-young, now the unification minister, was caught up in a controversy over disparaging older adults in 2004. Chung, as chairman of the DP's predecessor Uri Party, said about three weeks before the general elections that “people in their 60s and older, those in their 70s, don't need to vote.”

The Uri Party had at one point been projected to win as many as 200 seats in the National Assembly but ended up with just 152, while the Grand National Party, the predecessor of the PPP, staged a recovery with 121.

And in 2018, Choung Tae-ok, a former lawmaker of the Liberty Korea Party, which was also a predecessor of the PPP, was caught up in a furor six days before the 2018 local elections after remarking, “If you get divorced, you move to somewhere like Bucheon, and if it becomes hard to live in Bucheon, you move toward areas like Jung District or Nam District in Incheon.”

Choung Tae-ok holds a press conference at the National Assembly press briefing room in Yeouido, Seoul, announcing an independent bid for Daegu's Buk District A in the 21st general election on March 18, 2020, . [NEWS1]

The Liberty Korea Party went on to win only Daegu and North Gyeongsang among that year's metropolitan and provincial races, and lost everywhere else. Cha Myeong-jin, the United Future Party's candidate in Bucheon-C constituency and the immediate predecessor party of the PPP, was expelled a week before the 2020 general elections after suggesting that bereaved families and volunteers of the Sewol ferry disaster had engaged in sexual acts inside a tent. The United Future Party suffered a crushing defeat, taking only 103 seats.

“Both sides have played all their cards to win, from bringing out former Presidents Park Geun-hye and Lee Myung-bak to President Lee Jae Myung's appeals to get out the vote,” said Jang Han-ik, a senior researcher at Kstat Research.

“With so many races now neck and neck, a careless word or action could produce a fatal result in the election.”

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
BY PARK JUN-KYU, OH SO-YEONG [[email protected]]