— Published January 10, 2025

The Olympic Committee in the dark

South Korea

Will the election be postponed? Next president of the South Korean Olympic Committee must be designated on Tuesday, January 14. Six candidates, including incumbent President Lee Kee-heung, are vying for the post. Eleven voters, however, have taken the case to a Seoul court to ask for the election process to be halted. Lee Ho-jin is one of them. The president of the Korean Ice Hockey Federation denouncesattacks on the integrity of the vote. "For the election of the KIHA president, we had a voting window from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. I expected a similar organization", he explained to the Yonhap agency. Problem: the 2.244 voters will only have two hours and thirty minutes to slip their ballot into the box in Seoul, while some of them live elsewhere in the country. "If only voters in Seoul and its surrounding areas are allowed to vote, the integrity of the election risks being seriously compromised. At least one full day should be devoted to voting because many voters with day jobs will have difficulty coming from outside Seoul, he insists. If our request is not successful, we will initiate further legal action to overturn the result of the election. Lee Ho-jin can rely on current events to hope to win his case: a Korean court has just postponed the election of the president of the national football federation due to doubts about the transparency and integrity of the vote.