Eonju Lee and Minsik Park Create a 'Warm Atmosphere' in Debate... Focus on Policy Highlights

Second Face-off Debate Held on the 18th Between People Power Party's Busan Mayor By-election Primary Candidates

On the afternoon of the 18th, before the TV debate among the People Power Party candidates for the Busan mayoral primary held at Busan KNN, candidates Park Min-sik and Lee Eon-ju are taking a commemorative photo. (Photo by Yonhap News)

[Asia Economy Reporter Kum Boryeong] Ahead of the April 7 Busan mayoral by-election, at the People Power Party debate, preliminary candidates Park Min-sik and Lee Eon-ju proudly presented their policies and showed a relatively warm atmosphere.

On the 18th, the second head-to-head debate for the People Power Party Busan mayoral by-election primary candidates was held at the KNN Studio in Haeundae-gu, Busan. The first part featured candidates Park Seong-hoon and Park Hyung-joon, and the second part was a showdown between candidates Park Min-sik and Lee Eon-ju.

Since talks of unification between the two candidates have been circulating, rather than criticizing each other's policies, they showed positive reactions. During the debate, they used expressions such as "I acknowledge that" and "I strongly agree" with smiling faces.

In particular, they devoted much time to promoting their own policies. Candidate Lee asked Candidate Park, "There are many self-employed and small-scale business owners in Busan," and said, "I would like to hear your thoughts on how to revive them."

In response, Candidate Park proposed a public delivery application at the Busan city level as one way to support self-employed business owners. Park emphasized, "If I become the mayor of Busan, it is necessary to actively utilize a public delivery app at the Busan city level. For example, when ordering Gayamilmyeon through Baedal Minjok, the commission fee is about 10-12% as far as I know, but if operated by Busan city, the commission can be significantly reduced to about 2%."

Candidate Lee expressed regret over the lack of information for self-employed business owners and advocated for the establishment of a Small Business Support Center. Lee said, "In places like France where there are many self-employed, they continuously provide real-time information on the status of businesses by neighborhood and industry. Then, new self-employed people can look at the information and judge whether it is feasible to enter the market. I want to create and support apps that provide industry status information."

The two also exchanged opinions on the construction of a baseball stadium in Busan. Candidate Park said, "The cost of building a dome stadium is more than twice that of a regular stadium. Considering Busan's rainfall, there are only a few days when baseball cannot be played due to rain, so should we spend thousands of billions of citizens' taxes on this? I firmly oppose it. Instead of just building a baseball stadium, I think constructing a so-called complex cultural center would better match citizens' rest, Busan's economy, and tourism."

Candidate Lee also explained, "Since Busan is a city of baseball, let's properly build a baseball stadium by the seaside and build a baseball museum next to it. Let's make baseball enthusiasts from all over the world come to Busan. I believe it has become an era where money is made through culture."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.