"Change the law if necessary to get Yoon in the ring" Lee pressures Yoon for a one-on-one debate

From 3 to 7 Presidential Debates
Ruling Party Frames Yoon as 'Avoiding Debates'
Pressures with Mandatory Debate Law

[Asia Economy Reporters Koo Chae-eun, Park Joon-yi] The Democratic Party of Korea is continuously pressuring Yoon Seok-yeol, the People Power Party candidate, to "come out to the debate stage" by even proposing a bill to mandate "at least seven presidential election legal debates." To pass this bill, agreement must first be reached on whether the National Assembly will convene in January next year, making it unlikely to be applied to this presidential election. Nevertheless, this move is being used as a card to create a frame of "Yoon Seok-yeol avoiding debates."

On the 23rd, Democratic Party lawmaker Park Joo-min appeared on the radio and said, "Currently, YouTube channels and various media outlets want to invite (presidential) candidates for debates and have made many such proposals, but the People Power Party candidate Yoon Seok-yeol's side is not responding well." He added that they plan to push for a bill to expand the current legal debates from at least three times to at least seven times. According to Article 82 of the Public Official Election Act, legal debates hosted by the Election Broadcasting Debate Commission during the official election campaign period must be held "at least three times" in presidential elections.

The bills currently proposed include Representative Jeon Yong-gi's bill (which increases the number of debates hosted by the Central Election Broadcasting Debate Commission during the election campaign period to "at least seven times" under the Public Official Election Act) and Representative Kim Seung-nam's bill (which mandates at least six presidential TV debates). However, since there is no agreement yet between the ruling and opposition parties on whether the National Assembly will convene in January next year, the likelihood of these bills passing is not high. On the radio, Representative Park said, "Since the Justice Party is also actively demanding this, it is not impossible to urgently schedule a legislative session," adding, "First, we will try to pressure through bill proposals, and if that is still not accepted, we can proceed with legislation citing the high public demand for debates."

[Image source=Yonhap News]

This appears to be an attempt to maximize exposure of direct confrontations between candidates to highlight Yoon's lack of policy experience. Yoon did not participate in the one-on-one debate hosted by the Broadcast Journalists Club on the 2nd of last month and also did not attend the meeting hosted by the 'COVID-19 Small Business and Self-Employed Victims Solidarity' on the 20th.

Regarding this, the People Power Party's election campaign committee stated, "It is not that we are avoiding debates, but we believe that going out now would only lead to negative campaigning, which is not good," adding, "Candidate Lee Jae-myung keeps changing his stance on pledges and policies, and going out without a clear position would rather be unfavorable to the public." Concerning the bill proposed by the Democratic Party, they said, "The public's right to know is not only through simple debates but also through social media and various other means, so focusing solely on the number of debates is a binary way of framing the issue."

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