Debate captures woman power

Park Geun-hye, left, the ruling Saenuri Party presidential candidate, shakes hands with Moon Jae-in of the main opposition Democratic United Party before holding the first televised presidential debate at the MBC studio in Seoul, Tuesday. / Yonhap

Korean politics is the domain of men or so many people believe.

But Tuesday night’s televised presidential debate gave a strong rebuttal to this conventional wisdom.

The main opposition Democratic United Party’s Moon Jae-in was sandwiched between two female candidates: the ruling Saenuri Party’s Park Geun-hye and the minor leftist Unified Progressive Party’s Lee Jung-hee.

Interestingly enough, Moon refrained from going after Park, obviously thinking that it would be ungentlemanly to do so.

Moon is from the conservative Yeongnam area in the southeastern part of the nation.

Lee, who shared similar political views with Moon’s DUP, attacked Park but it remains to be seen whether this will help Moon.

But while the first television showdown between Park, Moon and Lee was much anticipated, the more cynical of voters had wondered whether they should bother to tune in.

Park and Moon had been locked in one of the nastiest campaigns in recent memory, throwing personal attacks back and forth in an anything-goes fight, and it has usually been all noise and no substance as neither of them is managing to offer specific plans for the next five years.

Park, the conservative candidate from the ruling Saenuri Party, had originally promised to unveil the finalized version of her campaign pledges by Thursday.

Now, her campaign officials admit that the deadline would be missed: The design of the cover and basic layout has been set, but Park still needs more time to read and approve the text, they say.

Moon’s book may take even longer as his associates at the DUP continue to talk with the strategists of independent candidate-turned-kingmaker Ahn Cheol-soo to deliver on their public promise to merge policies. Moon’s camp is also trying to reflect the opinion of the Progressive Justice Party (PJP) led by Sim Sang-jung.

“We have had enough time to study and discuss the policy suggestions of Ahn’s camp, but we haven’t been able to digest the PJP’s plans yet and decide on the things we can accept,” said a DUP spokesman.

“It would have been ideal if our plans were available to voters earlier, but it’s more important for us to be cautious and careful in picking the pledges that are plausible and worth representing.”

Park touts herself as the representative of a new breed of conservative politics that better protects the interest of working-class Koreans. Moon promises to combat inequality without hurting economic growth. They both are guilty of selling incredulous arguments that their respective administrations would be able to tax like a small government and spend like a big one. <The Korea Times/Yi Whan-woo>