Song Gap-seok Strongly Criticizes Yoon Seok-yeol for Calling to Attract 'Complex Shopping Malls' in Traditional Markets

Yoon Seok-yeol, the presidential candidate of the People Power Party, is holding a base campaign at Songjeong Daily Market in Gwangsan-gu, Gwangju Metropolitan City, on the morning of the 16th.

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Yoon Jamin] Song Gap-seok, chairman of the Gwangju Metropolitan City Party of the Democratic Party of Korea, criticized the complex shopping mall announced by Yoon Seok-yeol, the presidential candidate of the People Power Party.

On the 16th, Chairman Song issued a statement saying, “The pledge announced by candidate Yoon Seok-yeol to break regionalism and achieve the development of Gwangju is the attraction of a large corporate complex shopping mall,” and “The place where the pledge was announced was Songjeong Daily Market, a ‘traditional market’ in Gwangju,” he pointed out.

He continued, “Market merchants have suffered unimaginable pain for more than two years due to COVID-19, so who exactly is the presidential candidate who goes to a traditional market and says he will attract a large corporate complex shopping mall?” and “It is not only the shamelessness of talking about attracting a large corporate complex shopping mall in front of traditional market merchants that is the problem,” he asserted.

He also explained, “There was no understanding at all of Gwangju’s regional economy,” and “Among Gwangju’s population of 1.44 million, about 600,000 are related to self-employed and small and medium-sized businesses. The proportion of small business owners in Gwangju is the highest in the country.”

He added, “Small business owners and the self-employed are supporting Gwangju’s regional economy,” and “Therefore, Gwangju’s economy is feeling the difficulties caused by COVID-19 more acutely,” he emphasized.

Furthermore, he said, “In this situation, rather than presenting concrete alternatives for livelihood recovery as a presidential candidate, I strongly regret that he is engrossed in sowing discord by mentioning ‘GRDP bottom rank,’” and “Inciting pro and con debates without even basic common sense about the region’s economic structure and disparaging the region with provocative language is nothing but outdated division tactics,” he raised his voice.

Finally, he added, “The people call that politics of division and conflict,” and “Therefore, Yoon Seok-yeol is nothing more than a ‘puppet for regime change by old-fashioned forces.’”

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