Citizen seeks recall vote on mayor

By Kim Rahn

A Seoul citizen is seeking to recall Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon citing the mayor’s “negligence of his duty for citizens’ safety and welfare.”

The Seoul Metropolitan Election Commission said Thursday that it allowed 47-year-old citizen Lee Dong-in to collect signatures to hold a recall election.

The Yongsan District resident told the commission that mayor Oh has wasted taxpayers’ money by pursuing policies decorating the exterior of the capital, such as Design Seoul and the Han River Renaissance, but didn’t carry out his duty to protect citizens’ safety and lives by cutting the budget for anti-disaster measures.

The period Lee requested for signature collection is between Aug. 16 and April 14 next year.

In a recall system, citizens can oust local government heads they see abusing authority or promoting wrong policies.

A vote may be held when more than 10 percent of eligible voters sign up to hold a ballot to remove city or provincial mayors, and over 15 percent to oust district or county heads.

More than one third of eligible voters need to cast a ballot and over half of them must consent to the dismissal for it to happen. Citizens cannot seek a recall within a year of the official’s inauguration or with less than one year left in their term.

For Seoul, the recall vote can be held when over 838,000 citizens sign for it. Oh would be dismissed if 2.7 million vote and more than half of them agree the proposal.

The nation has seen two recall votes in recent years — one in Hanam, Gyeonggi Province, in 2007 and the other in Jeju in 2009 — but neither gathered the required number of participants.