[Inside Chodong] Debate, What Voters Desperately Need

[Asia Economy Reporter Bae Kyunghwan] The debate between the two major presidential candidates, which was almost set to take place during the Lunar New Year holiday, was ultimately canceled. Despite the court's injunction banning the two-party TV debate broadcast, both sides raised expectations by proposing a YouTube live stream, but voters missed the chance to scrutinize the limited political experience of these candidates.

The first one-on-one debate between Lee Jae-myung, the Democratic Party presidential candidate, and Yoon Seok-youl, the People Power Party presidential candidate, was considered a turning point that could determine the public sentiment just over a month before the election. However, the face-to-face meetings of the working-level negotiation teams were fraught with suspicion from the start. The meetings, which began on the 28th, continued until the evening of the 30th, and no meeting took place on the 31st, the scheduled debate day.

In the end, a dispute arose over the 'bringing of materials.' The Democratic Party criticized Yoon, saying he "admitted to being a candidate who has not studied the overall state affairs at all," while the People Power Party retorted, "What is the difference between proposing a debate without materials and a scam show, a lie, or just chatting?" Although the debate was canceled, neither side took the initiative to declare the 'failure.' Even after the holiday, both parties blamed each other for the cancellation, shifting responsibility away from themselves in front of the public until the very end.

In fact, there is no legitimate reason to prohibit 'bringing materials.' According to the Debate Management Regulations of the National Election Broadcasting Debate Commission, "Debaters may use documents, charts, pictures, or other reference materials within the size of A3 paper" during the debate. Although the planned debate was not organized by the Election Broadcasting Debate Commission, considering that it essentially borrowed the formal broadcast debate format, the demand from Lee's side has its limits.

However, the People Power Party's stance that "since they said they were confident in the debate, they should have accepted it generously" does not seem to convincingly persuade voters. Lee was the side that consistently showed a concession stance, saying "Let's debate as you want, and we will withdraw the demand for topic segmentation" to make the two-party debate happen. Previously, Lee's side also mostly accepted the date and time preferred by the People Power Party or Yoon's side.

Above all, the side that desperately needed the 'opportunity for verification' was the voters. In a recent poll, 75.6% of respondents said that "TV debates are important in deciding their preferred candidate." This means they want to directly hear the candidates' positions on policy verification, family insults, the Daejang-dong scandal, spouse remarks, and shamanism controversies, and then head to the election.

Now, the public's attention is focused on the four-party debate scheduled for this evening. So far, Lee's side has failed to show reform with their patchwork policies, and Yoon's side has not maintained the dignity of conservatism. Although the candidates pledge policy verification, it remains uncertain whether this debate will become a stage for policy competition or degenerate into another negative confrontation.

Therefore, it is essential to carefully follow their debate. The remaining month is far too short to have a discerning eye for policies delivered through ultra-short SNS messages, making the debate even more important. Although the label "the most disliked presidential election ever" is expected to linger even after the election, if morality can be confirmed in the debate and a vision to lead Korea's challenges and future can be found, investing two hours in them will not be a waste.

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