Park Young-sun "Yoon Only Pretends to Care About Small Business Owners" vs Won Hee-ryong "Lee Uses Subsidies for Vote-Buying"

Lee Jae-myung and Yoon Seok-yeol Presidential Candidates Debate Policies
Park Young-sun: "Digital Transformation Failed Under MB, Lee Will Achieve It"
Won Hee-ryong: "Moon Government Demonized Desire for Homeownership"

Park Young-sun, Chair of the Digital Transformation Committee of the Democratic Party Election Countermeasures Committee / Photo by Yonhap News

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Juhyung] Park Young-sun, Chair of the Digital Transformation Committee of the Democratic Party's Election Countermeasures Committee, and Won Hee-ryong, Head of the Policy Headquarters of the People Power Party's Election Countermeasures Headquarters, engaged in a heated debate over the policies of the ruling and opposition presidential candidates. They held a one-on-one policy discussion on behalf of Democratic Party presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung and People Power Party presidential candidate Yoon Seok-youl.

Chair Park and Head Won appeared on MBC's current affairs program '100-Minute Debate' on the 20th. On this day, the two exchanged intense arguments on various political issues including digital policy, support for small business owners, and real estate.

First, Chair Park emphasized Lee's 'Meta Government' policy, saying, "Candidate Yoon said he would create a 'Google Government.' What does that mean? Is he planning to hand over data to Google's headquarters in the U.S.?"

She continued, "During the Lee Myung-bak administration, cloud investment was banned, causing a failure in digital transformation, which the Moon Jae-in administration partially restored by about 50%. There is still 50% left to be done. The Lee Jae-myung administration plans to accelerate and create the first Meta Government," she stressed.

In response, Head Won said, "We aim to build the world's best data platform government," and countered, "Is the Lee Jae-myung administration planning to implement or abandon the basic income policy?"

He added, "With the development of artificial intelligence (AI), jobs are disappearing, so they say they will provide basic income. Since his time as governor of Gyeonggi Province, Candidate Lee has pressured the Deputy Prime Minister for Economy and the President to provide nationwide disaster relief funds, claiming it as basic income," he criticized.

Head Won further stated, "As this repeated, tens of trillions of won in disaster relief funds were distributed, but they could not even provide 20 to 30 trillion won in compensation for losses, leading to calls for supplementary budgets even from opposition parties," and pointed out, "Nationwide disaster relief funds are fundamentally about buying votes (by giving money)."

Won Hee-ryong, Head of Policy Headquarters of the People Power Party / Photo by Yonhap News

On the other hand, Chair Park criticized Candidate Yoon's policy proposed on the 2nd to compensate small business owners and self-employed losses with 43 trillion won secured through budget expenditure restructuring. She said, "This is a pie in the sky. Only the amount is announced, but payments are not made," and called it "crocodile tears pretending to care for small business owners."

She added, "Did the (Park Geun-hye) government support small business owners during the MERS outbreak?" and emphasized, "The Moon Jae-in administration was the first to recognize small business owners as economic agents and provided support funds."

The two also clashed over real estate policies. Head Won said, "Under the Moon Jae-in administration, comprehensive real estate tax, property tax, acquisition tax, and capital gains tax blocked transactions and criminalized the desire to own a home," and stated, "Candidate Yoon's principle is to allow normal transactions that do not obstruct supply and demand."

He added, "Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon regulated reconstruction and redevelopment for nine years, causing Seoul housing prices to skyrocket," and said, "We will reorganize Seoul's aging housing to normalize prices."

In response, Chair Park said, "The Moon Jae-in administration's real estate policy direction was correct," but added, "It was applied too rigidly and should have been operated more flexibly, but it was not successful. I apologize for that."

Meanwhile, Candidates Lee and Yoon are scheduled to hold their first TV debate during the Lunar New Year holiday on the 30th and 31st. The Democratic Party and People Power Party negotiation teams met at the National Assembly on the 19th and agreed on this debate schedule.

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