Did the South Korean ruling People Power Party sneak a political message into the school lunch menu at an elementary school before the general election on April 10, 2024? No, that's not true: The local education office said it was an unintentional mistake and promptly recalled it, removing the alleged political message. An official from the Gyeonggido Office of Education told Lead Stories it was just an incident, with no intention of sending a political message.
The claim originated from a video (archived here) published on TikTok on April 3, 2024, under the title "#국민의짐#부정선거" or "#PeoplesBurdenParty#riggedelection, as translated from Korean into English by Lead Stories staff. It opened, as translated:
People's Burden Party is extremely nervous and going crazy. They even sneaked on elementary school.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Fri Apr 5 05:02:57 2024 UTC)
'People Burden Party' is a common derogatory expression used by some to indicate the People Power Party; it became popular among liberal supporters after current Democratic Party Leader Lee Jae-myung used it on a parliamentary audit (archived here) in October 2020 when he was governor of the Gyeonggi Province.
The TikTok video shows images of news reports from Yonhap, published on April 2, 2024, and Asia Economy, published on April 3, 2024 (archived here and here). The cited news reports covered what has been referred to as the "political message on school lunch menu" incident. In an elementary school in Hanam, Gyeonggido, an image was inserted in the monthly lunch menu calendar for April 10, 2024, election day in South Korea (archived here), to fill the space since there would be no lunch served on the day, as election day is a holiday in the country. According to media outlets, a nutritionist chose the image, which read "Vote is People's Power," to fill the blank box corresponding to April 10, 2024.
However, in Korean, the sentence can also be interpreted as "Vote for People Power Party," stirring speculation that this could have been a veiled, intentional electoral message. The "incident" quickly became a minor political case. Also, there had been a similar incident in an elementary school in Daejeon (archived here) on March 26, 2024, with a similar image with the same message on the school's lunch menu calendar. The Democratic Party (DP), the main opposition party, expressed concern about the incident in Daejeon. In a statement (archived here) from the Daejeon branch of the party, DP said, as translated from Korean by Lead Stories staff:
To defend the basic principle of democracy and fair election, we urge the National Election Commission and the Office of Education to clarify the facts through a strict investigation and prepare specific measures to prevent recurrence.
For both incidents, the Daejeon Office of Education and the Gyeonggido Office of Education told the press (archived here and here) there was no political intention behind the use of that image, as revealed by an investigation carried out.
During a telephone interview with Lead Stories on April 5, 2024, an official from the Gyeonggido Office of Education said:
The [latest] incident was caused by the negligence of the school dietitian. There was no political intention on behalf of that person, or the school, local education office, or Gyeonggido office of Education.
Lead Stories also tried to contact on April 12, 2024, the People Power Party in the main headquarters in Seoul, and the Gyeonggi branch by telephone, but could not reach any representative to have a comment.
A search conducted by Lead Stories on April 16, 2024, on the People Power Party's website, shown in the screenshot below, did not lead to any statement or official comment on the matter.
(Source: PPP website search result screenshot on April 16, 2024, 04:12:30 UTC)
