Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon arrives at the final hearing in his trial on violating political funding laws at the Seoul Central District Court in the city’s Seocho District on June 17, 2026. (pool photo)
Speculation is mounting over the fate of Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon, whose trial on charges of accepting free polls on public opinion conducted by political broker Myung Tae-kyun could bring an early end to his term. Former President Yoon Suk-yeol on Monday was found guilty of taking illegal political funds in the form of such surveys from Myung. The verdict in Oh's first trial is scheduled to come out on July 22.The Seoul Central District Court sentenced Yoon to two years and Myung to 18 months for violating the Political Funds Act. A team led by special counsel Min Joung-kie, which investigated allegations related to former first lady Kim Keon-hee, indicted Yoon for conspiring with his wife to receive, without charge, favorable results in 58 public opinion polls conducted between April 2021 and March 2022 worth 270 million won. In return, Yoon and his wife helped secure nominations for Kim Young-sun, a former lawmaker of the main opposition People Power Party, and others in the 2022 National Assembly by-elections.The ruling in the first trial said the former presidential couple illegally obtained the results of 14 such polls.In December, the special counsel team also indicted Oh for violating the Political Funds Act. The charge was that ahead of the Seoul mayoral by-election of April 7, 2021, he received the results of 10 polls from Myung and had 33 million won in expenses paid by the mayor's sponsor, the businessman Kim Han-jung, through Oh's close aide, former Seoul Deputy Mayor Kang Cheol-won.At the final hearing of the trial, the prosecution requested 18 months in prison for Oh and a forfeiture of 33 million won.The mayor has categorically denied the charges, saying he never ordered, received the results of or paid for a poll. He called the accusations a "baseless and trumped-up charge with no single shred of proper evidence."If Oh is convicted and fined 1 million won or more in this case, he will be stripped of the Seoul mayorship. The Public Official Election Act and the Local Autonomy Act stipulate the resignation of a local government head who is fined 1 million won or more for illegal receipt of political funds.By Park Hyun-jung, staff reporterPlease direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]
