Park Young-sun "Oh Se-hoon, Discriminating Children's Lunch Bowls" vs Oh Se-hoon "Emotional Manipulation Using Gender Shield"

Campaign Clash About a Month Before Voting
Candidate Park: "Seoul's Care Issues Will Be Exposed"
Candidate Oh: "Quit Now Instead of Negativity"

Park Young-sun, the Democratic Party of Korea's candidate for Seoul mayor, is speaking at the Small and Medium Business and Small Merchant Town Hall Meeting held on the 10th at KBIZ Small and Medium Business Central Association on Eunhaeng-ro, Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul. / Photo by Yonhap News

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Juhyung] Park Young-sun, the Democratic Party candidate, and Oh Se-hoon, the People Power Party candidate running in the April 7 Seoul mayoral by-election, engaged in a heated debate over childcare issues. Park criticized Oh by referring to his past opposition to Seoul's free school meal policy, stating that "a candidate who advocated for discrimination over children's meals cannot be expected to have genuine welfare policies." In response, Oh called it "a distortion of facts and a smear campaign."

On the 10th, Park opened fire targeting Oh, asking, "Can we expect genuine childcare?" During an appearance on YTN Radio's 'Hwang Bo-seon's Start of a New Morning,' Park said, "This election clearly has a structure. Is the candidate focused on Seoul and prepared solely for Seoul, or is the candidate whose heart is elsewhere, coming to politically exploit Seoul because things aren't going well there?"

She continued, "The biggest change in Seoul after COVID-19 is that 'childcare' is entering the public domain," and pointed out Oh as "a candidate who was dishonorably forced to resign after advocating for discrimination over children's meals related to free school meals."

Previously, Oh, while serving as Seoul mayor in 2011, risked his mayoral position by calling for a referendum opposing the Seoul elementary school free meal ordinance and subsequently resigned.

Regarding this, Park remarked, "I think if such candidates become mayor of Seoul, many problems regarding childcare for Seoul citizens will be exposed."

Oh Se-hoon, People Power Party Candidate for Seoul Mayor / Photo by Yonhap News

Oh immediately issued a statement in rebuttal. On the same day, Oh said, "This is a negative attack based on distorted facts," and countered, "Seoul citizens know that my position at the time was to save the budget spent on meals for children from wealthy families and instead support learning for children from poor families, rather than full free school meals."

He added, "My approval ratings also reflect the citizens' understanding of this," and criticized, "I can't understand why only Park Young-sun either doesn't know this fact or pretends not to know it."

Oh also referred to Park's apology on March 8, International Women's Day, to the victims of sexual harassment by former Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon.

He said, "When I called Park's apology 'a belated election-driven apology,' she wrote that I 'attack the opponent continuously without fact-checking,'" and criticized, "The media said it was the first apology since the candidacy announcement. No citizens or media consider ambiguous remarks as an apology."

He added, "Park's outdated behavior of exploiting gender as a shield for emotional manipulation according to her own interests undermines women's dignity," and concluded, "If the negative attacks are due to pressure to win the election, she should resign immediately."

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