Lee raises Daejeon-South Chungcheong Province merger ahead of local election

President Lee Jae Myung on Thursday raised the possibility of merging Daejeon and South Chungcheong Province into a single administrative division before next year's local election in a meeting with ruling Democratic Party lawmakers representing constituencies in the region.

Lee said that such a merger could help solve wider issues, and the newly merged division should elect its first leader in the upcoming June local election, Lee told the 14 Democratic Party lawmakers of the region.

He added that central government should provide “practical and valid” administrative support for the merger, according to presidential spokesperson Kang Yu-jung in a written statement.

This ignited rumors that Lee’s chief of staff, Kang Hoon-sik, might run to head the new entity. Kang was previously a three-term lawmaker representing the Asan-B constituency in South Chungcheong Province before resigning from the post to be appointed as Lee’s top aide.

Daejeon is a metropolitan city with a population of over 1.4 million, while South Chungcheong Province has over 2.2 million people.

With the two divisions' combined area reaching 8,740 square-kilometers, the new division would remain the sixth-largest province, but would be over 14 times larger than that of the capital city of Seoul, and over 11 times larger than Busan, South Korea's second-most populous city.

Lee said during the lunch meeting that the merger could be a game changer in addressing overcrowding in the Greater Seoul area that has long hindered the rebalancing of national economic growth.

Lee also said the newly merged area would help South Korea's balanced growth, suggesting "forward-looking" approaches as to how to name the merged division and where its government building should be located, according to Kang.

Lee proposed the merger as one of his campaign pledges but it was not included in his administration's five-year blueprint in August.

Currently, the right-wing main opposition People Power Party holds both seats of Daejeon mayor and the South Chungcheong Province governor.

The agenda of merging of the two divisions has been led by the People Power Party. Daejeon Mayor Lee Jang-woo and South Chungcheong Province Gov. Kim Tae-heum declared a need for the merger of the two divisions in November 2024. Rep. Sung Il-jong of the People Power Party led the special bill proposal with scores of his party’s lawmakers in October, but the bill has since been pending in the parliament.

The liberal president reportedly asked his party's lawmakers to devise a special bill at the parliament and pass it by February. Lee's office declined to comment on the matter.