Cho Eung-cheon Announces Run for Gyeonggi Governor as Reform Party Candidate

Cho Eung-cheon, a former Reform Party lawmaker, announced on April 28 that he will run for governor of Gyeonggi Province, urging voters to “put down the wrong answer sheets of bad and strange candidates” and choose him as a “good candidate.” 

Speaking at a news conference at the National Assembly, Cho said he has lived by “principles and conviction.” 

He criticized eight years of Democratic Party leadership in the province, from Lee Jae-myung to Kim Dong-yeon, asking what had changed for residents. Cho noted the population rose by 1 million, from 13 million to 14 million, and the province’s main budget expanded from 20 trillion won to 40 trillion won, more than doubling, but questioned how much residents’ lives improved.

Cho said the Democratic Party now treats Gyeonggi residents like “fish already caught,” and took aim at Democratic Party candidate Choo Mi-ae, saying it was arrogant to nominate someone with no ties to the province who had not lived there and had focused on political fights in the National Assembly.

He also criticized the People Power Party, saying its “bullying politics” of using Gyeonggi as a sacrifice for personal political advancement must end. He said the party still had the race vacant because no senior figure stepped forward despite encouragement and it failed to find a competitive candidate even after additional recruitment. 

“The two major parties have taken away Gyeonggi residents’ right to choose,” Cho said, adding, “Gyeonggi needs administration, not politics. What matters is competence and experience, not a party label.”

Cho called the long-standing gap in living conditions between southern and northern Gyeonggi a key challenge. He said the southern belt should be further strengthened as a foundation for South Korea’s growth and innovation, and that the results should be shared more evenly with northern Gyeonggi and the country as a whole.

He pledged a denser, more rational transportation network for residents who moved from Seoul to Gyeonggi, and said new momentum is needed for first-generation new towns where 300,000 households in Bundang, Ilsan, Pyeongchon, Sanbon and Jungdong are aging at the same time. Cho also said he is the only candidate who can fight “with conviction and professional capability” against the ruling party’s push to move a semiconductor industrial complex to what he called an uncompetitive, remote area. 

Cho pointed to Hwaseong’s Dongtan, saying residents showed in the last general election that they can make a better choice by electing Rep. Lee Jun-seok. “Now it’s time to make the Dongtan miracle happen across all of Gyeonggi,” he said, calling for a political upset.

Asked about the possibility of a conservative alliance with the People Power Party, Cho said his party has no reason to unify candidacies, but added, “If a proposal comes, we’ll listen.”