A provincial residents' petition calling for Gyeonggi Governor Choo Mi-ae to resign surpassed the 10,000-signature threshold for an official response three days after it was posted on the 11th of this month.
On the 14th, on the Gyeonggi Province petition website, a petition titled "We petition for Governor Choo Mi-ae's resignation," posted on the 11th, surpassed 10,000 participants at about 5:30 p.m. that day. Once a petition exceeds 10,000 participants, it becomes subject to an official response from the governor. Governor Choo must respond within 30 days to the petition demanding her resignation.
The petitioner said in the post, "According to the fiscal analysis by the Democratic Party's task force (TF) on fiscal soundness, after comprehensively examining various indicators and the fiscal structure, the fiscal situation cannot be deemed an immediate crisis. Nevertheless, the governor, based only on a subjective judgment, pushed ahead with declaring a fiscal emergency, saying 'at this rate we default,' and carried out a spending restructuring totaling as much as 546.5 billion won in this supplementary budget."
The petitioner added, "While claiming a fiscal emergency, they cut civil servant incentives to less than half, yet Governor Choo herself contracted for an official residence—a 47-pyeong apartment she uses alone—with a deposit exceeding 1.2 billion won," and "as the side effects of the excessive budget cuts are emerging one by one and threatening residents' daily lives, we petition for Governor Choo's resignation before it is too late."
Hong Eun-gwang, Gyeonggi Province Spokesperson, conveyed the position on the resignation petition through a written briefing late this afternoon.
Spokesperson Hong said, "Only nine months' worth of this year's essential livelihood budget for Gyeonggi Province, which was arranged last year, was reflected, and even after making considerable use of various funds and internal resources, there is almost no fiscal capacity left that can be additionally mobilized," adding, "Nevertheless, we express deep regret over the distortion of facts, as if the 9th popularly elected provincial administration intentionally cut properly arranged livelihood budgets."