Lee-Yoon One-on-One Debate Agreed but Still a 'Rule' War... 'Policy' vs 'Verification' Strategies Hidden

Democratic Party: "Yoon Trying to Avoid Policy Debate"
People Power Party: "Lee Trying to Undermine One-on-One Debate"

[Asia Economy Reporter Naju-seok] Despite the Democratic Party of Korea and the People Power Party agreeing to hold a one-on-one debate between presidential candidates on the 31st, they engaged in a heated dispute over the debate format. The Democratic Party, advocating for a discussion covering overall national issues, insisted on debating by topic, while the People Power Party stated they would participate without any topic restrictions. Behind this 'battle of rules,' the debate strategies of both candidates were clearly revealed.

On the 28th, the working negotiation teams for the Democratic Party and the People Power Party held talks on the debate rules but failed to reach a final agreement. The most contentious point between the two sides was whether to limit the debate topics. After the negotiations, both sides exchanged heated words over this issue.

Park Chan-dae, chief spokesperson for the Democratic Party's election campaign committee, stated, "Based on the previous agreement to cover overall national affairs, the Democratic Party proposed to the People Power Party that the one-on-one debate focus on topics such as livelihood economy, diplomacy and security, and morality verification." He added, "However, the People Power Party insisted only on a topic-free debate format, so no agreement was reached today, and we decided to meet again tomorrow."

Lee Jae-myung, the Democratic Party presidential candidate, attended the 'Maetaverse Goyang, Into the Hearts of the People!' event held on the 26th at Hwajeong Station Cultural Square in Gyeonggi-do, waving to citizens and greeting them. Photo by the National Assembly Press Photographers Group

Regarding this, Yoon Seok-yeol, the People Power Party's presidential candidate, launched an unexpected offensive, saying, "Do not avoid a 'condition-free one-on-one debate,'" and criticized, "I cannot understand how covering overall national affairs can be considered a condition or restriction." He further pointed out, "Calling that a condition is an absurd reversal of words."

Park also criticized, "He repeatedly made mistakes during every policy announcement, and now it is ridiculous that he tries to avoid policy debates out of fear." He questioned, "Is he not confident in policy debates and still lacking in studying policies?"

He continued, "Is Yoon suggesting that when candidates from both parties meet for the first time, they should just engage in meaningless chatter and negative verbal fights?" He argued, "As presidential candidates standing before the people, it is only right to address livelihood issues and overall national affairs that the public wants to hear about."

The People Power Party presented the exact opposite logic. Lee Yang-su, chief spokesperson for the People Power Party's campaign committee, said, "The candidate's negotiation team demanded to split topics into politics, economy, culture, and further insisted on absurd demands to divide topics into '10 minutes on growth,' '10 minutes on distribution,' '10 minutes on Daejang-dong,' and so on." He criticized, "This disappointing attitude can only be seen as an intention to hide topics like Daejang-dong and Seongnam FC corruption and to neutralize the one-on-one debate by splitting topics repeatedly."

[Image source=Yonhap News]

Lee stated, "Yoon Seok-yeol's position is clear: he proposes a condition-free one-on-one debate covering overall national issues. If insufficient, he suggests holding one-on-one debates every three days to let the public make a judgment."

Ultimately, the core disagreement between the two sides is whether to cover overall national affairs (Democratic Party) or to not limit topics and focus on specific issues throughout the debate time (People Power Party).

Behind this disagreement lie the perceived gains and losses each side has judged.

Candidate Lee, confident in policies and national administration, aims to demonstrate his governance capabilities by addressing policy issues. He also sees this as an opportunity to exploit the weaknesses of political newcomer Yoon. In fact, opinion polls show that regardless of support rates, Candidate Lee receives relatively favorable evaluations regarding governance ability.

On the other hand, as pointed out by Lee Yang-su, Candidate Yoon appears to focus his offensive on issues related to Candidate Lee, such as the Daejang-dong scandal and Seongnam FC allegations. Rather than being compared on overall governance ability, he intends to emphasize his background as a former prosecutor general and continue the confrontation as 'prosecutor' versus 'suspect.'

Both sides plan to continue negotiations at 11 a.m. on the 30th.

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