S.Korea ex-PM falsely links tourism campaign to voter fraud

Published on August 12, 2025 at 06:02
2 min read
By SHIM Kyu-Seok, AFP South Korea

Former South Korea prime minister Hwang Kyo-ahn falsely claims in a Facebook post that the government's plan to grant visa-free entry to Chinese tourists is a ploy to commit voter fraud ahead of next year's local elections. The country's national election body dismissed the assertion as "legally impossible", as short-term visitors are ineligible to vote.

"(The South Korean government) is offering visa free entry to Chinese tourists until June 30 next year," reads the Facebook post published August 8, 2025.

"The local elections next year is on June 3. I can already smell their plan to commit election fraud by mobilising Chinese people en masse."

The claim surfaced after the Ministry of Justice announced August 6 it would temporarily allow visa-free entry for Chinese tourist groups from September 29, 2025 to June 2026 (archived link).

The policy is aimed at boosting inbound tourism ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Gyeongju in October.

Hwang, who served as prime minister from 2015 to 2017, has become a prominent far-right activist in recent years, frequently promoting unsubstantiated claims of election fraud (archived link).

Screenshot of the misleading Facebook post captured August 11, 2025, with a red X added by AFP

Similar posts spread in other Facebook groups frequented by conservative users.

But under Article 15 of South Korea's Public Official Election Act, foreign nationals may vote in local elections only if they have been permanent residents for three years or more as defined in Article 10 of the Immigration Act (archived here and here).

"The claim is legally impossible, as eligibility to vote in the local election requires at least three years of residency status and registration as a foreign resident," a National Election Commission (NEC) spokesperson told AFP on August 11.

"A foreigner who enters the country even in August this year would still be ineligible to meet these qualifications by next year's local election."

The spokesperson stressed that this rule makes it impossible for Chinese tourists arriving under the temporary visa-free programme to vote in the June 2026 local elections -- a point the NEC has reiterated whenever similar rumours have circulated (archived link).

According to the JoongAng Ilbo, which cited a parliamentary report, there were approximately 141,000 foreigners eligible to vote in South Korea as of March 2025 (archived link).

AFP has previously debunked numerous fraud claims surrounding South Korean elections, including a similar narrative falsely suggesting Chinese residents were voting in the 2024 parliamentary poll.

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