Seoul School Lunch Vote to Test Sentiment on Welfare

Evan Ramstad:

A municipal vote in Seoul on Wednesday over free school lunches is shaping up as a test of South Koreans' sentiment on government welfare spending, and the outcome is expected to influence races in parliamentary and presidential elections next year.

Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon, a member of the conservative Grand National Party that controls the Parliament and presidency, pushed for the referendum as a challenge to the city council's decision to expand a free-lunch program.

The council, which is controlled by the opposition Democratic Party, earlier this year voted to provide free school lunches to all of Seoul's 850,000 elementary and middle-school students, at a cost of about $378 million a year. Supporters of the free-lunches-for-all policy say it removes the stigma that recipients of free lunches face.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at August 23, 2011 1:34 AM
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