People Power Party: "Lee Jae-myung refuses debate to avoid Daejang-dong verification... Apologize to the people"

"TV Debates Hosted by the Election Commission Also Allow Bringing Materials, What Justification Is There to Ban It?"

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Ki-min Lee] The People Power Party's TV debate negotiation team stated on the 31st, "Holding onto a faint hope, we waited until this morning, the Lunar New Year holiday, to continue negotiations with the Democratic Party," and claimed, "Ultimately, candidate Lee Jae-myung seems to be refusing this one-on-one debate to avoid scrutiny over the Daejang-dong allegations."

As the one-on-one debate originally scheduled for that day between Lee Jae-myung, the Democratic Party's presidential candidate, and Yoon Seok-youl, the People Power Party's presidential candidate, continued to face conflict over whether materials could be brought, the People Power Party held a press conference at the central party office that afternoon.

At the press conference, Sung Il-jong, head of the People Power Party's TV debate negotiation team, said, "According to Article 9 of the Election Broadcasting Debate Management Regulations on the National Election Commission's website, debaters are allowed to use reference materials such as documents, charts, and pictures within A3 size," adding, "What justification is there to block something that is allowed by regulation?"

He continued, "Candidate Lee is the best in South Korea at evading, reversing statements, covering up, dodging, and making excuses," and argued, "Only by presenting accurate facts and rebutting when candidate Lee uses his rhetoric in the debate can the truth be uncovered."

He further urged, "Candidate Lee also used materials during candidate debates. The Democratic Party asked candidate Yoon if he would engage in 'cheating debates,' but candidate Lee should debate without materials even in the upcoming legally mandated debates hosted by the National Election Commission. According to the Democratic Party's claim, debating with materials would be 'cheating.' Apologize immediately to the public who were expecting the one-on-one debate," he demanded.

When asked by reporters shortly after whether the multi-party debate scheduled for the 3rd would proceed as planned, the negotiation team replied, "Yes. We have already accepted the multi-party debate."

Regarding the Democratic Party's argument that candidates should just familiarize themselves with the materials beforehand, they countered, "We will bring materials related to criminal acts such as Daejang-dong, but the candidate will not bring materials unrelated to that."

Special advisor Hwang Sang-mu emphasized, "The Democratic Party has always avoided this. They hid behind the four-party debate and pressured to hold that first. As a second step, they proposed splitting the topics, suggesting 20 minutes each for real estate, growth, and others. When public criticism grew, the third step was to propose debating without materials."

Head Sung said about the possibility of the debate taking place, "We have already reserved the main auditorium at the National Assembly Members' Office Building because we really want this debate to happen," but added, "Given the current time, it seems physically difficult to set it up," expressing low expectations.

Regarding the multi-party debate on the 3rd, he stated, "The rule meeting between the three parties and broadcasters was already completed while we were absent last time. When I went yesterday, the rules were fair, so we will not raise any objections," and added, "The speaking order has also been decided, so we will prepare accordingly."

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