Conservatives slam DP leader's 1-million-won stimulus plan

General election 2024

Published: 25 Mar. 2024, 18:56

Conservatives slam DP leader's 1-million-won stimulus plan

Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung, second from right, speaks at a campaign event in Gimhae, South Gyeongsang, on Monday. [NEWS1]

Democratic Party (DP) leader Lee Jae-myung's suggestion that every household should receive 1 million won ($750) as part of an economic stimulus plan was blasted as “populist” and vote-pandering by conservatives on Monday.

Speaking at a campaign event the previous day in Songpa District, southern Seoul, the DP leader said a per-person subsidy of 250,000 won would “solve the cost of living crisis,” adding later at a different rally that his plan would “show those morons how it’s done” in apparent reference to President Yoon Suk Yeol and the conservative People Power Party (PPP).

Lee’s suggestion echoes a key pledge of his 2022 presidential campaign manifesto, in which he promised to distribute 1 million won to every household to revitalize the economy after the Covid-19 pandemic.

The DP leader further argued that the money being spent to hold Yoon’s town hall meetings across the country — which the DP says is a thinly-veiled form of pre-election campaigning — could be better used as subsidies for households.

“They say that the cost of Yoon traveling here and there adds up to about 1 quadrillion won. If we could take just a tiny amount of that money and give it to families to spend in their local areas within six months, it would give a real boost to neighborhoods such as this one,” Lee later claimed at a market in Yeongdeungpo District, western Seoul.

Recently, the DP leader has also taken aim at the Yoon administration’s foreign policy while on the campaign trail.

At a Friday rally in Seosan, South Chungcheong, Lee likened voters’ choices in the election to “a sports match between Korea and Japan,” alluding to his party’s criticism of Yoon and the PPP being too conciliatory toward Japan on various issues, such as security cooperation and the discharge of radioactive water for the ruined Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

The DP leader also argued that the Yoon administration “doesn’t need to provoke China,” saying that Seoul “only has to say ‘xiexie’ to Beijing and ‘xiexie’ to Taipei” to maintain good relations with both sides of the Taiwan Strait.

Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung poses with a green onion at a traditional market in Songpa District, southern Seoul, on Sunday. [NEWS1]

Lee’s comments and colorful language attracted fierce criticism from several PPP candidates including former Land Minister Won Hee-ryong, who is running against Lee in Incheon’s Gyeyang-B electoral district.

In a Facebook post uploaded on Sunday, Won said that Lee is “once again spitballing policy proposals just before the election,” adding that the DP leader’s suggestion is tantamount to urging the government to “just spend 13 trillion won.”

Rep. Ahn Cheol-soo, who is running in Seongnam’s Bundang-A district, said Lee’s comments “show that he wants to win more votes by handing out money unnecessarily in a non-crisis situation” and called on the DP leader to “halt his ruinous populist agitation.”

Ahn’s comments were echoed by former deputy prime minister Choo Kyung-ho, who said the DP is “irresponsibly trying to buy votes again after having already left behind a massive pile of debt to the current government and future generations.”

Another PPP candidate, Yoon Hee-suk, criticized Lee’s stimulus plan as fiscally irresponsible, arguing that it would “only add fuel to inflation, which is only now under control.”

Referring to a photo of Lee posing with vegetables at a traditional market in Songpa District, Yoon called the DP leader a “moron who should stick to waving onions.”

BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]