NEC Completes the Fair Management of KOC President Elections

The National Election Commission (NEC) of the Republic of Korea announced that Lee Kee-heung was elected with 294 votes out of the total of 892 (33.0%) in the Korean Olympic Committee (KOC) president elections held on October 5. 

This is the first time the NEC has been entrusted with the election management of the KOC president elections in accordance with the National Sports Promotion Act amendment in 2015.

This election, unlike those in the past which only 50 representatives participating as voters, had an electorate composed of 1,405, including board members, athletes and leaders. The voters were chosen through a random draw out of the ten times the number of voters to actually vote, who were proposed by each affiliated organization or local councils of sport for all. 

For the fair management of these elections, the NEC set up special prevention and crackdown teams and undertook active preventive and crackdown activities to regulate key election crimes such as:

• Campaigning by Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism using their status.

• Acts of bribery by voters including the gifting of money or goods

• Acts of circulating false information

• Acts of slandering candidates

In addition, last October 1 the Korean Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (KAHPERD) held a debate for candidates and, in an effort to make this a policy-based election, presented each candidates policies and pledges on election day so they could be compared and evaluated. 

The NEC announced that “these elections have been successfully and fairly managed,” and that “in the future, through the fair management of entrusted private elections, we will make efforts so that a clean election culture can take rook in daily life.”