SUWON — Anyang City Council member Kwak Dong-yoon is running for chair of the Democratic Party's youth committee in Gyeonggi Province.
Kwak recently completed candidate registration and primary candidate registration, the Anyang City Council said on the 28th. He was assigned ballot number 2 for the election. Online voting runs from 9 a.m. on the 29th to 6 p.m. on the 30th. The electorate consists of youth members with voting rights in the Gyeonggi provincial chapter who were born on or after Aug. 18, 1980.
Kwak is a young politician who holds the record as the youngest candidate ever elected to the Anyang City Council and has since won a second term. He chairs the council's Urban Transportation Committee and has been named a top-performing member in administrative audits for three consecutive years. He majored in English language and literature at Sogang University and completed a master's program in English education. He previously served as vice chair of the party's national youth committee and of its Gyeonggi provincial youth committee.
Kwak has also focused on communicating directly with residents. He runs a KakaoTalk-based channel called "Dongyoon Talk," through which he shares local issues with more than 10,000 residents. Drawing on his experience in local government and in youth organizations, he plans to rebuild the network of young party members across Gyeonggi Province.
If elected, Kwak said he would launch a listening tour visiting all 60 district committees in Gyeonggi Province. He plans to hear from young party members on the ground and to design tailored support measures, distinguishing between areas with large young populations and those with weak organizational foundations.
He said he wants local youth committees to serve not merely as event organizers but as a base from which young party members can propose policy and take part in the party's decision-making. He stressed that the rebuilt local organizations should function as a channel connecting young voters to the Democratic Party in the 2028 general election.
His policy pledges center on practical problems in young people's daily lives. They include guaranteeing a first job and building career ladders, a youth independence package combining housing, transportation and employment, and starting-line policies to ease disparities in parental wealth.
He also said he would build a youth safety net covering health, isolation and care, and that he would focus on the shared anxieties and individual risks faced by his generation rather than on conflict between the sexes. His pledges also include a youth right to participate and receive answers, under which policy proposals from young people would get an initial response within 30 days.
"As youth committee chair, I will recreate a place for young people in every district committee and build a structure in which young people can raise their own agenda and get answers," Kwak said.
"I will connect the administrative problems I identified as an Anyang city councilor and the realities of child care and housing that I have felt since becoming a father to organizing young people in Gyeonggi Province," he said. "I ask young party members with voting rights in Gyeonggi Province to put their strength behind ballot number 2."
The primary to select the chair of the Democratic Party's Gyeonggi youth committee is a two-way race between Kwak and Son Sung-ik, a member of the Gyeonggi Provincial Council. Young party members with voting rights in the provincial chapter will choose the next youth committee chair through online voting.
