With three days to go before Wednesday’s by-election for Seoul education chief, two main candidates Moon Yong-lin and Lee Soo-ho are focusing on ideological accusations rather than policy.

Moon, a former education minister on a conservative platform, is targeting his progressive rival Lee’s background as head of the Korean Teachers and Education Workers’ Union, calling him a “pro-North Korea leftist.”

Moon also accused Lee of involvement in now-defunct Democratic Labor Party.

“He caused a disruption in our public education while leading the unionized teachers, also being involved in the labor party. We shouldn’t let him lead Seoul’s education along the wrong path,” Moon said during his campaign Friday.

Lee, who represents progressive interests, has accused Moon of forming coalitions with politicians in order to boost his chances of winning the election.

Moon until recently served as a special adviser to Park Geun-hye, the presidential candidate from the ruling Saenuri Party.

Lee is also attacking his conservative rival for working as director for Daekyo Culture Foundation, the country’s leading private education company while still working as professor at Seoul National University.

“He has received money from the private education company for more than 10 years. It makes no sense let him take charge of public education,” Lee said.

The two have also clashed over former Seoul’s education chief Kwak No-hyun’s polices. While Lee pledges to keep Kwak’s liberal scheme, such as the “innovative school” project, which gives teachers more freedom in setting the curriculum, Moon intends to scrap the project, arguing that it is designed to help the teacher’s union rather than the students.

Observers say the election will be extremely close. The last survey released by Media Research and commissioned by KBS showed that Moon has a marginal lead with 16.9 percent against Lee with 15.5 percent, while a majority of 59.5 percent said they still did not know who they will vote for.

Five candidates entered the race to win the top post at the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education.

The three others are law professor Lee Sang-myun, Seoul education bureaucrat Nam Seung-hee and former high-school teacher Choi Myung-bok. But the conservative SNU professor Lee announced Friday that he would withdraw in support of Moon.

The winner will be chosen from the four remaining candidates in a by-election held simultaneously with the Dec. 19 presidential election.

By Oh Kyu-wook (596story@heraldcorp.com)