Park Young-sun Criticizes Oh Se-hoon: "Free Kindergarten Meals, Rather a Delayed Policy"

Former Minister of SMEs and Startups Park Young-sun, Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon [Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Jun-yi] Former Minister of SMEs and Startups Park Young-sun criticized Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon's designation of 'free kindergarten meals' as the best achievement over the past month, calling it a "very obvious and rather belated policy."

On the 16th, Park said on Facebook, "It has been just over a month and a week since the Seoul mayoral by-election ended."

She added, "Looking back, through the Seoul mayoral elections, the half-price tuition pledge for Seoul City University was realized in 2011, the hydrogen economy pledge for the hydrogen fuel cell car era in 2018, and the free kindergarten meals pledge in 2021."

On the 4th, Mayor Oh held a press briefing immediately after attending the Cabinet meeting and stated, "Seoul City will conduct a research project to calculate the exact meal cost and estimate the financial burden for support through discussions with the City Council to promote free kindergarten meals," adding, "We plan to quickly implement free kindergarten meals."

Then, on the 15th, on his YouTube channel 'Oh Se-hoon TV,' in response to the question, "Among the policies implemented over the past month, what do you think you did best yourself?" he said, "I implemented several policies, but among those I decided on, many people have evaluated positively the support by Seoul City for free kindergarten meals and the actualization of childcare center meal and snack costs."

However, former Minister Park pointed out, "Claiming free kindergarten meals as the best achievement over the past month is a bitter confession of clinging to the tail end of an era, following the times ten years late."

She continued, "Now is the time to prepare to survive in the digital world that will dominate us after the COVID-19 tunnel and to become a digital powerhouse," asserting, "The Moon Jae-in administration should have passed on the foundation for becoming a digital powerhouse to future generations through the transition to a digital economy."

Regarding her defeat in the April 7 Seoul mayoral by-election, she said, "If someone asked me to sum up my failure in the last Seoul mayoral election in one word, I would say it was 'laziness and arrogance toward innovation,'" and added that she would explain the details on another occasion.

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