Lee calls additional THAAD deployment “heinous”
South Korea’s presidential candidates hit the campaign trail as the 22-day official campaign period for the March 9 election started Tuesday. Yoon Seok-youl, the presidential candidate from the conservative main opposition People Power Party (PPP) said that people should render a verdict on the “incompetent and corrupt Democratic Party’s administration” by voting, while leftist candidate Lee Jae-myung claimed that he can revive the sluggish economy.
Lee from the DP traveled from Busan to Seoul and Yoon from Seoul to Busan, with both holding events along the way. They stopped at the major cities along the route including Daejeon and Daegu.
On Tuesday, Yoon continued to call for a change from the current Moon administration and the DP. He used the phrase “replacement of the administration” more than 10 times during his speeches throughout the day.
Yoon delivered his first election campaign speech to people gathered in central Seoul, saying the “DP administration divided people for the past five years with their outdated ideology.” He added that “they used power to take advantage of their interests and continued to use double standards.”
“Are you really going to just wait and watch the Republic of Korea that the people have protected be collapsed by incompetent and corrupt political forces?” Yoon said that he will not hide behind his key aides if he becomes president and will communicate with people directly when explaining state affairs.
Calling himself a political freshman, Yoon said he has no political debts, unlike candidates with longer experience. “I only need to repay the public, which invited me [into politics] and supported me,” Yoon said. “I can push forward bold reforms against the establishment.”
Yoon then stopped in downtown Daejeon and emphasized that the city is the center of South Korean science and technology. “The incompetent DP administration ignored science while just repeating outdated ideology.” He criticized the Moon administration’s key economic and science-related policies, such as the phasing out of nuclear power, saying that the government made the world’s best nuclear technology die out.
While visiting Daegu, Yoon said he began his career as a prosecutor in the city and that he felt glad to be back. Rep. Hong Joon-pyo, who competed with Yoon during the party primary, joined the rally at Daegu and called on local residents to support Yoon.
“Previously, more than 80 percent of people living in Daegu and North Gyeongsang region supported former President Park Geun-hye, and I plead that those 80 percent of the people show their support for Yoon this time as well,” Hong said.
Yoon gave a speech to around 1,000 people gathered in Busan, his last stop of the day, and said that the people cannot allow an ungrateful administration to take power again. Yoon asked whether people can believe it when the ruling party says that they will hand out gold bars to people. He added that “if they fool us once, shame on them; fool us twice, shame on us.”
Lee Jae-myung began his schedule in Busan, saying that he chose the city to emphasize South Korea moving toward both the continent and ocean. Lee met with maritime traffic control workers at the port of Busan early Tuesday morning, highlighting his campaign pledge to restore Korea’s economy at all costs.
“If it is a good policy, I will use it, whether it was from Hong Joon-pyo, or from [the late president] Park Chung Hee,” said Lee, a former Gyeonggi governor known for his fierce criticism of conservatives like Hong and Park. “We need to use all the abilities of this country.”
While visiting Daejeon, Lee brought up further deployment of the Terminal Altitude Area Defense [THAAD] U.S. antimissile system, calling it “heinous stuff.” Previously, Yoon said that he will deploy more THAAD antimissile batteries in South Korea to protect the lives of 20 million people who live near the Seoul metropolitan area and mentioned that the location could be somewhere closer to the border than the THAAD battery deployed by the U.S. forces in the southeast of the Peninsula. Some media speculated that Daejeon or the greater Chungcheong region surrounding the city could be an option for the site.
“Chungcheong is my wife’s hometown,” Lee said. “I will provide your homes with heaters instead of heinous stuff such as the THAAD antimissile system.”
Shim Sang-jung from the extreme leftist Justice Party visited North Jeolla province and criticized both the DP and PPP. “The current administration’s incompetence, arrogance and double standards betrayed the desire of the people who joined the candlelight protests [that called for the resignation and impeachment of former President Park Geun-hye],” she said. “It was the DP administration that revived the extreme conservative forces that were impeached so quickly and made the prosecutor-general of the current administration become the prominent presidential candidate from the opposition party.”
Ahn Cheol-soo from the moderate People’s Party visited the birthplace of former President Park Chung-hee in North Gyeongsang, and said that he will achieve a second “Miracle on the Han River.” The phrase refers to the period of rapid economic growth in South Korea following the Korean War, during which it transformed from a least developed country to a developed country.
Meanwhile, Ahn’s election team announced later that day that it will suspend his schedule after two people were found dead and one unconscious on a bus belonging to the campaign team. The two are suspected to have died from carbon monoxide poisoning while inside the idling vehicle during election campaigning. The 45-person election bus was renovated to include a generator that powered a huge LED screen on the outside of the bus.
The DP, the PPP, and the Justice Party offered their condolences to Ahn and the families of the victims. Meanwhile, it is still unclear whether Yoon and Ahn will unify their candidacies after Ahn proposed using a public opinion survey to select a single opposition candidate last Sunday.
