Start date August 24, 2011 | ||
The Seoul Free Lunch Referendum was a referendum held on 24 August 2011, on the subject of free school meals in the schools around the Seoul Metropolitan Area. The former mayor of Seoul, Oh Se-hoon, proposed to provide a limited free meal service to the 30% of the impoverished children in Seoul, but the Democratic Party proposed to make the free meal service to every kid in Seoul starting from younger elementary school children and gradually to middle school children. This has become the cause of Oh Se-hoon's action to make the final decision of the policy through a referendum. The referendum was later rejected due to the low voter turnout of 25.7%, significantly lower than the required turnout of 33.3%. The low voting rate contributed Oh Se-hoon's resignation from the mayoralty of Seoul.