on a just evaluation of the political parties and the candidates. This, at the same time, diminishes by half the meaning of the political activities continuously done by the political parties and the candidates in the past several years in order to obtain the trust of the public, and thereby gravely depreciates the principle of parliamentary democracy. An electoral campaign in a democratic country is a free and open competition for multiple parties and candidates, with a goal to obtain political power, to seek a vote, by emphasizing their political activities and achievements during the past and by convincing the voters of the legitimacy of the policy they pursue. Such free competition relationship among the political parties to obtain the votes through the voters' judgment upon the policies and political activities is significantly perverted by one-sided intervention of the President supporting a particular party. The relevant part of the President's statements at issue repeatedly and actively expressed his support for a particular political party in the course of performing his official duties and further directly appealed to the public for the support of that particular political party. Therefore, the President's taking advantage of his political weight and influence vested in his public office through the above statements favoring a particular political party, by way of identifying himself with such political party, was an exercise of undue influence in a way not appropriate for his responsibility as a servant for the entire public by the use of his status as a state institution. The President thereby violated his obligation to maintain neutrality concerning elections. 3) The judgment upon whether there was undue influence on the election may also vary depending upon the timing certain statements supporting a particular party were made. Should a statement as such be made at a time where there is no temporally intimate relation to an election, there is only a remote or limited possibility for such statements to affect the outcome of the election. However, as the election approaches, the possibility for the President's statement supporting a particular political party to affect the outcome of the election increases, therefore the President bears during such time period, as a state institution, an obligation to restrain, as much as possible, any and all acts that may unfairly influence the election. Although it is not possible to clearly discern when an one-sided act of the state institution begins to particularly affect the election, the statements by the President at issue herein were made on February 18, 2004 and February 24, 2004, with approximately two months remaining before the general election for the National Assembly on April 15, 2004. Thus, at that time, there existed a temporal intimacy between the statements and the election as the preparation for the - 176 -