The election to choose the 37th president of the Korean American Federation of Los Angeles (KAFLA) is expected to be uncontested.
Robert Ahn, one of the board members of KAFLA, came as the only candidate to pick up registration documents during the candidate filing period.
The organization’s election committee announced that no one else received a registration form on October 25, the last day for candidates to file for the KAFLA 37th presidential election.
As a result, Robert Ahn became the sole candidate who received a registration document during the registration period. The election committee distributed candidate registration documents from October 23 to October 25. Ahn picked up the documents on October 24 and prepaid $5,000 of the $50,000 candidate filing fee.
Ahn is not yet an official independent candidate. As a preliminary candidate, he has until November 6 to submit all 29 candidate filing documents to become an official one. If there are any deficiencies or missing documents, he will have to submit additional supporting documents during the filing period from November 7 to 8.
If there are no disqualifications, Ahn will be able to stand as an independent candidate and become the 37th president of the Korean American Federation of Los Angeles without a vote, according to the organization’s bylaws.
In case Ahn does not register finally as a candidate, he will not be able to refund the $5,000 he paid in advance, according to KAFLA’s election committee’s rules. In addition, since there would be no registered candidates, the election committee will decide on a candidate filing schedule within 30 days to go through the re-registration process. If no candidate registers at this time, the board of directors will reschedule the election again.
Independent candidates do not have to pay the $80,000 election fee. “The $80,000 campaign fee is for candidates who have more than one candidate running,” said Jeff Lee, executive director of KAFLA. “The campaign expenses already spent are covered by the $50,000 candidate filing fee,” he added.
BY KYEONGJUN KIM, HOONSIK WOO [kim.kyeongjun1@koreadaily.com]
