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UPP candidate to play key role in TV debates

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By Jun Ji-hye
  • Published KST
  • Updated KST

By Jun Ji-hye

Lee Jung-hee

Lee Jung-hee, a presidential candidate from the minority Unified Progressive Party (UPP), will likely play an important role in the upcoming televised debates with Park Geun-hye and Moon Jae-in.

Lee can join the TV debates organized by the National Election Commission as the UPP has six seats in the National Assembly. Candidates eligible to take part in the debates must be from a party with at least five seats in the National Assembly or whose average opinion poll ratings are over 5 percent. Her current rating is 0.4 percent.

Lee is poised to call for an abrogation of the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA) and halting the construction of a Navy base in Gangjeong Village on Jeju Island.

Moon, the main opposition Democratic United Party candidate, has also called for a revision of the KORUS FTA and renounced the plans for the Navy base.

Lee is also expected to join Moon in attacking the ruling Saenuri Party’s Park over affairs that occurred under Park’s father’s regime, the late former President Park Chung-hee’s. They include the Yushin coup and the People’s Revolutionary Party incident that resulted in the execution of eight people in 1975.

Lee and Moon may also join forces in criticizing the conservative Park’s pledges for economic democratization as she excluded many of her initial suggestions for reforming chaebol, the country’s massive family-owned conglomerates, when announcing her final campaign pledges.

However, analysts say the circumstances are not just unfavorable for the ruling party’s standard bearer. It is because Park can attack Lee on being pro-North Korea, especially if the UPP candidate insists on the removal of U.S. troops from Korea or a re-investigation of the 2010 sinking of the warship Cheonan.

The National Election Commission plans televised debates on Dec. 4, 10 and 16 as the National Election Broadcasting Debate Commission must hold at least three after candidate registration deadline, which passed Monday.