Free education and medical care are promised by labor candidate

Kwon Young-ghil, presidential candidate of the Democratic Labor Party, said Friday that the government would provide free education and free medical services, if he become the next president.

"Free medical services will be first provided to the poor, the old and the weak," said Mr. Kwon. He spoke with the JoongAng Ilbo in an exclusive interview. Mr. Kwon, a former reporter and union activist, ran for president in 1997 and won 1.2 percent of the vote.

Mr. Kwon said that he would overhaul the tax system to generate an added 34 trillion won ($27 billion) for education and medical services. He would increase taxes on people with more than 3 billion won in assets and would rely more on direct taxes, such as the income tax, rather than indirect taxes such as the sales tax. Korea currently relies heavily on indirect taxes.

Surplus tax money would also be used to scale down the size of the Korean army, Mr. Kwon said. By reducing rear-echelon troops, he said, the army could be trimmed from the current 700,000 men to 500,000. He would also reduce mandatory military service, currently 26 months, to 18 months.

Mr. Kwon said he would strengthen the high school system that provides roughly the same education in all schools. "Special high schools for language and science talents and independent high schools would no longer exist if the public education system were strengthened," Mr. Kwon said.

"Large firms with more than 1,000 workers should return part of their surplus to the workers, so that workers can purchase up to 25 percent of their company's shares," the candidate said. "By doing so, workers would be able to participate in management."

Mr. Kwon had harsh words for the other presidential candidates. He said that Korean politics should be reorganized into conservative and progressive camps. "The aim of the Democratic Labor Party is to seize national power," he said. "I am running for president to change the conservative politics that has spanned 50 years."

by Kim Sung-tak