The Seoul Metropolitan Government on Dec. 20 asked Seoul City Council to reconsider a bill on free school lunches for all elementary schoolchildren in the city. The city government claimed that the council violated laws in order to shift the responsibility from the superintendent of education to the mayor and that this infringed upon the mayor¡¯s right to draw up the budget.

The bill was passed on Dec. 1 by members of the Democratic Party, the majority party in the city Council. The bill stipulates that the city should provide free lunches for elementary schoolchildren from 2011 and for middle school children from 2012. After discussing this issue with about 100 primary and secondary school principals and parents, Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon issued a statement opposing the wholesale implementation of free school lunches in cooperation with 35 organizations, including the Korean Federation of Teachers¡¯ Associations.

DP members of the City Council are, however, ready to pass the bill at a full session of the Council to be held on Dec. 29. In order to pass it, the Council needs a majority of more than two thirds of the members present.

The current Eighth Seoul City Council opened in July this year following local elections conducted in May. A total of 114 Council members, including eight members of the Board of Education, were elected in the local elections. The GNP is the majority party in the National Assembly, while the DP is the main opposition party. But the tables were turned in the Seoul City Council, which consists of 27 Grand National Party members and 79 DP members. The GNP is the minority party, while the DP is the majority party here. Oh was first elected as Mayor in 2006 then reelected in 2010.

Under these circumstances, since the new Council controlled by the DP was launched, the Seoul city government led by a GNP mayor has been at odds with the Council over various issues, such as opening up Seoul Plaza to citizens, free school meals, city government finance and welfare projects. Especially, Oh called the DP Council members¡¯ support of free school lunches ¡°ruinous populism.¡± In fact, the city government did not earmark a budget for free meals for elementary schoolchildren, a stance that civic groups and opposition parties strongly opposed. Oh¡¯s rationale is that the city government cannot allocate money for free meals even for children from wealthy families. But civic groups and opposition parties blame him for having allotted huge amounts of money to PR activities for the city government and a lantern festival on the Cheonggye Stream which flows through the downtown area.

The Council says free school lunches are part of ¡°universal welfare¡± projects, while the city government says it is necessary to give ¡°selective welfare¡± benefits only to children from low-income families. The Council says the free school meals are part of people¡¯s basic rights, but the city government accuses the Council of infringing upon its own budget authority.

1. Why does the Seoul City Council support free school meals?

2. Why does the Seoul city government oppose it?

3. Why did the Seoul mayor blame the Council for its populism?