A civic group filed a complaint with the state election watchdog Thursday, accusing President Yoon Seok Yeol of churning out vote-catching policies in favor of the ruling party ahead of the April 10 parliamentary elections.

The People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy filed the complaint with the National Election Commission against Yoon on charges of violating his duties to maintain political neutrality and avoid involvement in elections.

The group claimed that Yoon held 21 livelihood debate sessions with residents while travelling around the country and announced pork-barrel policies to woo voters without taking into account the necessary budget to execute them.

During such sessions, Yoon vowed to expand the Great Train Express commuter rail networks to reduce the commute between Seoul and surrounding areas and pledged to expand the state scholarship program, among others.

“(The president) vowing to promote local projects long-cherished by residents in a way that is favorable to the ruling party
and their candidates is a violation of a public officials’ duty to maintain political neutrality and opt out of the election,” the group said.

It called on the election watchdog to swiftly look into the case and take appropriate measures to prevent such “explicit election intervention” by the president from recurring in the future.

Source: Yonhap News Agency