Alex Jensen: Welcome, or welcome back, you’re listening to koreabizcast with KBLA. I’m your host, Alex Jensen. And it’s Monday, February 7. It’s a new year, a year of the Tiger no less, and a new beginning as we reboot after a Christmas and January break. But we do remain just as committed as ever to bringing you stories, discussions and insights that will hopefully inform and inspire you to take your own business journey even further. We want to connect you with others. And we’d love you to connect with us. Follow us on LinkedIn by searching KBLA and let’s take it from there. On today’s episode, we check in with the presidential election ahead of a big few weeks for the country, and seek to keep us all in the loop and look out for more business stories later in the week, including a German corporate giant tomorrow.

Alex Jensen: Without further ado, then let’s get underway with that March 9 presidential election just around a month away now, and four candidates finally had their first TV debate. In the last few days, we’ve got our special issues reporter, Kyungmi Choi, focusing solidly on the election for us and making sure that what we need to know, in the conversations that we’re all bound to have in the weeks ahead. Kyungmi, thank you very much for joining us and taking this time to survey the scene for us.

Choi Kyungmi: Thank you for having me.

Alex Jensen: So do you wanna start with what we learned from those TV conversations?

Choi Kyungmi: Right, so the four candidates here that we’re talking about are the ruling Democratic Party’s Lee Jae Myung, main opposition People Power Party’s Yoon Suk Yeol, Ahn Cheol Soo of the minor opposition People’s Party and Sim Sang Jung of the minor opposition Justice Party. And there was actually some drama leading up to this debate when Ahn Cheol Soo filed an injunction against a planned debate between the two leading candidates, although it was the DP’S Lee Jae Myung and the PPP’s Yoon Suk Yeol and that debate was canceled after the court granted the injunction banning three major local TV stations from holding or broadcasting a debate exclusively with the two candidates. And after this decision, the main opposition’s Yoon Suk Yeol requested a non televised one on one debate with Lee Jae Myung. So it remained unclear whether a four way debate would be held after all, but the four parties finally agreed to hold a multilateral TV debate. And it finally took place last Thursday. And it looks like this was a much needed debate as the rating for the debate was 39% when combining the figures of all three major broadcasters. And this was actually the highest rating for televised presidential debates since 1997, when the country was gearing up for the 15th election following the IMF financial crisis when it saw rating of close to 56%.

Alex Jensen: So that’s really intriguing that this particular moment would see such a large amount of attention, you could perhaps say that people’s social lives have changed amid the pandemic. And I’m sure there are some other social factors as well. But maybe it does also reflect this feeling like we’re at a bit of a crossroads as a country right now, not just in terms of pandemic management, but where we’re heading with a number of regional security issues and economic questions. Coming back to the issues, though, that the candidates touched on they did include diplomacy and security quite prominently, didn’t they?

Choi Kyungmi: Alright, so when asked to rank which national leaders they would meet with first after becoming president among North Korea, US, China and Japan, the ruling party’s candidate, Lee Jae Myung responded that he can’t settle priority among the four and that he will meet with the most efficient counterpart depending on the situation. And he also stated that there is no need to decide whether to prioritize the US China or North Korea, and that practical diplomacy centered on national interest is what’s important. And the main opposition’s Yoon Suk Yeol stated that he will meet with the US leader first, followed by the Japanese, Chinese and North Korean counterparts. He also said that he needs to store the trilateral relationship among Seoul, Washington and Tokyo, which has been damaged due to the current administration’s pro China and pro North Korea diplomacy and People’s Party Ahn Cheol Soo prioritized the Seoul Washington alliance of all by China, North Korea and Japan while the Justice Party’s Sim Sang Jung  pointed to an inter Korean summit as the number one task.

Alex Jensen: A lot of people had expectations from current president Moon Jae In that he would perhaps weaken the US Alliance, but if anything, it’s actually strengthened over that period of time, but his direct successor would be seen as Lee Jae Myung. And based on what you’ve just said, there, perhaps we would see a slight shift away from the US Alliance or at least that he’s not prioritizing that. Yoon Suk Yeol’s clearly taking the traditional conservative stance here, and can you imagine? It seems very unlikely based on polls, but can you imagine if Sim Sang Jung was president and basically ignored the US and went straight for North Korea summit, certainly would be interesting. But the candidates also clashed over some of the big issues around the US Alliance, for example, Washington’s deployment of Terminal High Altitude Area Defense or THAADthird here, which in recent years has caused major problems in that China relationship.

Choi Kyungmi: Right. So Lee Jae Myung stressed that Seoul is capable of establishing a defense system using its own technology and capabilities. And he proposed developing a homegrown missile defense system rather than deploying the thought batteries, or he said that the system would only bring backlash from China and ruin the economy. And he also proposed a plan to speed up the development of indigenous long range surface to air missiles. And on the other hand, Yoon Suk Yeol fully supported the deployment of odd saying that it’s necessary to destroy ballistic missiles fired towards the capital region at a high angle. But then he later added that the location can be decided from a military standpoint, even if it’s not the capital region. And he also explained that a preemptive strike against North Korea is necessary to prevent a war and to protect peace.

Alex Jensen: And coming on to another area completely, but one which will perhaps be even more influential on the outcome of this election I suspect the economy and in particular real estate policies when we look at that landscape,

Choi Kyungmi: Right, so regarding real estate and which policy needs to be fixed most urgently, Lee Jae Myung said the top priority is expanding housing supply so that citizens can achieve their dreams of becoming homeowners. And he added that the current housing market has excessively restraints supply and Yoon Suk Yeol evolved to alleviate regulations related to loans, remove all obstacles in either purchasing homes or finding Jeonse or rentals involving lump sum deposits, and revise three key real estate related acts. And Ahn Cheol Soo shared similar views to Lee Jae Myung saying that it’s necessary to stabilize our housing prices and increase supply so that those with thought homes can become homeowners and to increase the rate of homeowners from the current 61% to at least 80%. And Sim Sang Jung emphasized the need to stabilize the housing market and called for consensus in the political circle to lower housing prices, and the Daejang Dong land development project that took place in Seongnam City when Lee Jae Myung was serving as the city’s mayor also came up. The main opposition candidate accused Lee of designing the project in a way that ended up in only a few figures benefiting from close to 1 trillion won in profits. And in response to this, Lee reported saying that the city wasn’t able to return the profits from the project to the public due to interference by the main opposition party.

Alex Jensen: Yeah, there was some controversy involving the main opposition candidate here, Yoon Suk Yeol. Regarding energy policies, after it was revealed that he didn’t know what some of the key terms meant.

Choi Kyungmi: Right, so this PPP nominee argued that it was impossible to switch to 100% renewable energy sources, but he implied that he doesn’t know that what the terms are renewable energy 100 means and this campaign aims to achieve 100% renewable electricity and Korea joined the initiative last year. And when asked to share his thoughts on how he will deal with the controversy surrounding the inclusion of nuclear energy and the EU taxonomy. You can also said that he’s never heard of the term and asked for its definition. And EU taxonomy is a system for classifying which parts of the economy can be marked as sustainable investments. And following the debate, the ruling party, of course, attacked Yun  regarding this, saying that it was shocking that a presidential candidate didn’t know what these terms meant, comparing him with their own nominee, claiming that Lee Jae Myung is a prepared candidate. But the PPP assessed that Yoon Suk Yeol performed the best of the debate, saying that he showed the power of a former prosecutor general with professionalism. And we’re expecting several more televised debates among the four nominees leading up to the election in the next month. And the next one is just around the corner this Thursday. And another one is scheduled for the February 21, which will focus on economics, followed by one on the 25th on politics and on March 2, which will highlight social issues.

Alex Jensen: Yes, so those debates can be pretty influential as well. Although I wonder whether a lot of voters have already made their minds up. And I say that because some of the scandals that have been around don’t seem to have had as much impact on the polling data that you might have expected for what polling data is worth. And perhaps you’ve seen that most prominently with Yoon Suk Yeol and his wife, for example, although it turns out, Kyungmi, that you’re not the only prominent candidate with a wife who’s been in the spotlight going into this phone.

Choi Kyungmi: That’s right and there’s controversy surrounding Lee Jae Myung’s wife, Kim Hye Kyung as well, which first came to light on January 28. She’s being accused of having civil servants run personal errands for her when Lee Jae Myung was serving as county governor, and the allegations include having his former aides pick up packs of beef for her, which was first purchase with a personal credit card, but was bought a day later with a corporate credit card after the initial transaction was cancelled, and Kim faced further backlash after it was revealed that this wasn’t the only time she used the corporate credit cards. And Lee has apologized over the controversy and requested county province to conduct an audit into the allegations. And the provincial government said last week that it will launch an audit indeed. And as for the main opposition’s candidate, as you mentioned, a few weeks earlier last month, recordings of multiple phone calls between his wife, Kim Gun Hee, and a liberal journalist were revealed. Some of the comments she made suggested that she tried to meddle in US election campaign and that she had ties to shamanism. And Yoon has also apologized over the controversy but emphasized that his wife is not involved in his campaign activities. And earlier on, she also faced backlash for falsifying her credentials in job applications, and for plagiarizing her thesis. Meanwhile, Ahn Cheol Soo is taking this chance to differentiate himself from the two candidates, emphasizing that his family members aren’t embroiled in any controversies and calling the other two flawed.

Alex Jensen: I did think it was really interesting when I came back from the UK after Christmas to suddenly see Ahn Cheol Sooo in the mix, like I’d never seen him before. I never expected him to be before I went away, things certainly can change quickly, and maybe we’ll see yet some twists and turns. The best we can judge that at the moment and I implied before we might not be able to fully trust it would be polling data. How are they looking in the midst? The polls that is of the ongoing family crises, the attention diverting, perhaps where it shouldn’t be and following that first televised debate?

Choi Kyungmi: Well, in a poll conducted by research view and commissioned by UPI News released last Friday, Yoon Suk Yeol was in the lead with 46% against Lee Jae Myung with 38% and this was after the two gained 1% and last 1%, respectively from the previous poll a week earlier, and Ahn Cheol Soo gained 8% and Sim Sang Jung had 3% each down by one percentage points. And the poll was conducted from last Tuesday to Thursday on 1,000 adults. In another poll conducted from last Wednesday to Thursday by Korea Society opinion Institute commissioned by Herald business on 1,000 adults, or the PPP candidate was also in the lead with 45.7% and the ruling party nominee with 40%. Compared to the previous poll carried out from December 27 to the 28th, Yoon’s rating rose by 7.9%, while Lee’s fell by 2.9%. And Ahn Cheol Soo’s rating stood at 6.9%, and Sim Sang Jung’s at 2.7%. And in the last survey, Lee Jae Myung was in the lead with 40.4% compared to Yoon Suk Yeol’s 38.5%. And this poll was conducted by Hungarian research commissioned by Cookie News last Wednesday and released the following day, and Ahn Cheol Soo had 8.2% of public support and Sim Sang Jung had 3.3%. And all of these three polls had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points and 95% confidence level.

Alex Jensen: We’ve seen polls repeatedly mislead us, the public analysts, whoever else takes interest, but certainly they give us an indication that things are going to be pretty close going into this vote. And we’ll have to listen to your words very closely as well. Tell me in the coming weeks, as we near that and find out what comes out of those debates. I do think from the community of expats here, the community of business people, we are going to see profound changes coming out of this election, whoever wins, it’s not going to be continuity, we’re going to see some changes, for example, in the world of real estate and business friendly or otherwise policies, but also geopolitics and perhaps even pandemic response. It’s gonna have perhaps a much bigger impact than we quite realize at the moment. And maybe we can assess some of that as we get closer. Kyungmi Choi, thank you very much. It’s been a pleasure connecting with you.

Choi Kyungmi: Thank you for having me, Alex.

Alex Jensen: So that closes the first day of our rebooted version of koreabizcast, with KBLA. I’ve been your host, Alex Jensen. It’s gonna be wonderful to have you with us in the coming weeks and months. If you’d like to get in touch to inquire about sponsorship to inquire about coming on the show, to inquire about sharing something that you think the Korean business community and other interested parties need to know about, just drop us a line, info@kbla.net and otherwise see you again this time tomorrow.