Parties politicize pledge to close Gimpo airport

Lee Jae-myung, second from right, the Democratic Party of Korea's by-election candidate for a National Assembly seat representing Gyeyang-B District in Incheon, shakes hands with supporters at a traditional street market in the city's Namdong District, May 31. Yonhap

By Ko Dong-hwan

• Published May 31, 2022 4:52 PM KST
• Updated Jun 1, 2022 4:52 PM KST

Ruling party criticizes Lee Jae-myung's 'surprise' pledge for lacking logic

By Ko Dong-hwan

An all-of-a-sudden election pledge to close Gimpo International Airport and then redevelop the surrounding region has pitted rival parties against one another over the pledge's feasibility.

The pledge was announced only days before the local elections by Lee Jae-myung, who is running on the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) ticket for a National Assembly seat representing Incheon's Gyeyang-B District.

After Lee announced the pledge last week, the ruling People Power Party (PPP) heads and election candidates condemned it for being far-fetched and unexpected. Lee and DPK politicians have come forward defending the pledge, saying there is no need for their rival colleagues to get so upset over the pledge.

The heated debate started on May 27 when Lee, who lost in the presidential election to the PPP's Yoon Suk-yeol by a slim margin earlier this year, announced the controversial plan on the grounds that the airport's presence is blocking urban development in the vicinity, which includes southwestern Seoul, Incheon's Gyeyang District and Gimpo, Gyeonggi Province. The DPK's Seoul mayoral election candidate Song Young-gil jointly proposed the pledge with Lee. If the airport is closed, Lee argued, travelers can instead use nearby Incheon International Airport, Wonju Airport in Gangwon Province or Cheongju Airport in North Chungcheong Province.

“There are almost 10 million square meters of land that cannot be developed because of various regulations placed upon the region surrounding Gimpo airport,” Lee said on Monday at his election campaign office in Incheon. “To develop Gyeyang, Incheon and southwestern Seoul, I believe (the function of) Gimpo airport must be relocated to Incheon airport.”

Lee's pledge, however, triggered chaos from within the party.

Kim Dong-yeon, the DPK's candidate for Gyeonggi Province governor, said an air force base at Seoul Airport in Seongnam is better off being relocated to Gimpo airport. Oh Young-hoon, the DPK's candidate for governor of Jeju Special Self-Governing Province, said that many visitors to Jeju Island use Gimpo airport to get there, and made an outright objection to the pledge on May 28, saying “the future and sovereignty of Jeju Island aren't in the hands of Lee Jae-myung and Song Young-gil.”

Oh added that the DPK had considered the pledge “inappropriate” and didn't include it in its platform for the recent presidential election campaign.

PPP Chairman Lee Jun-seok on May 29 lampooned the DPK, saying the main opposition politicians cannot even find a common ground regarding the problematic pledge. “The DPK's Lee is trying to ruin the tourism industries on Jeju and Ulleung Island,” the PPP chief said on Facebook, Monday, referring to the country's popular local destinations, which tourists have been visiting via Gimpo airport. “Lee should take that pledge back, or I would like to challenge him to a debate with no time limit.”

The same day, Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon, who is running for re-election on the PPP ticket, said on Facebook that the DPK's Lee and Song made such a potentially large-scale pledge just days before the elections merely to attract attention from voters. “They don't deserve to represent Gyeyang and Seoul,” he said. “They had better be extracted from the country's political circles.”

Busan Mayor Park Heong-joon, who is running for reelection on the PPP ticket, also condemned the DPK on Facebook, Monday, over the controversial pledge. He said that if Gimpo airport gets shut down, its impact will fall not just on Jeju but also on Busan because the city's industry and tourism rely heavily on the flight route connecting Gimpo and Busan's Gimhae International Airport.

“According to the Korea Airports Corp., over 5.4 million people flew the Gimpo-Busan route in 2021,” Park said. “I've used the route almost 2,000 times over the past 30 years. The pledge shows how short-sighted the DPK is. It's also absurd to recommend using airports in Incheon or Wonju instead which take at least one or two hours (from Seoul) to get there.”

DPK Co-Chairperson Yoon Ho-jung also waded into the party's debate regarding the closure of Gimpo airport, saying on May 29 that the party will make a final call depending on which regional voters show the most support for the party in the elections.

PPP Floor Leader Rep. Kweon Seong-dong countered Yoon at the party's Daejeon mayoral election campaign office on Monday, saying Yoon is “essentially threatening voters by holding them responsible for their final decision.”

While the finger-pointing from the PPP over the Gimpo airport pledge continued on Tuesday, Yoon said the same day that Lee Jae-myung's pledge is perfectly appropriate since he is running for a local constituency, not the presidency. In local elections and by-elections that elect representatives for a certain constituency, candidates can come up with pledges which can then be publicly vetted afterward. He called it a “positive aspect” of any election.

“Since it's a local election, we allowed our party's candidates the freedom to come up with pledges they deem necessary for the constituencies they are running for,” Yoon said, appearing on a radio show on KBS. “The PPP, however, ignores this basic principle and attacks our candidates for having 'different' opinions from theirs.”