[EDITORIALS]No more empty pledges

As the presidential election nears, candidates are pouring out policies under the name of campaign pledges. Listening to the pledges, it sounds as if economic development, social justice and welfare improvement will be achieved at any moment. The pledges give us the impression that the social outcasts will disappear soon and that power will be exercised fairly.

It is natural for presidential candidates to present their policies and make campaign pledges to attract voters' attentions and win support. Campaign pledges are also good because they bring hopes and expectations to the people. The story is different, however, if the policies are far from feasible. Even Korea's smaller political parties have joined in, making pledges that are silly mockeries.

The presidential candidates in the bigger parties are making public their visions, only half of which will be feasible, taking into account budgets and social conditions. Some policies are completely absurd, but possible candidates still speak of them in the campaigns. A presidential candidate presented a policy that he had long ignored because he wanted to attract voters' attention.

The presidential candidates are copying each other's pledges. Campaign pledges abo-ut women's affairs, the subject of interest for a large number of voters, are indistinguishable from each other. After a candidate promised to give 30 percent of his party's nominations for the National Assembly to women, another candidate said he will provide 50 percent. The candidates are so busy feeding unverified pork-barrel policies to the voters that no candidate speaks of the real issues －－ the stock market and interest rates. The candidates are perhaps worrying that their financial policies would be too unreasonable or would contradict with their other pledges. No matter what the reason is, no candidate has mentioned his financial policy vision.

This administration pledged to make our society corruption-free. The government also promised to fill a quarter of the cabinet with women and young people. We are no longer living in an era in which campaign pledges are mere lip service. Politicians should know that our society has matured enough to verify the feasibility of campaign pledges.