Lack of Commitment, Low Attendance Cloud General Election

Public Policy Institute of Korea and CESO have made a comparative research on both leading party’s public pledges. According to PPI; Public pledges announcements that are not properly supported by necessary law or proper policy planning are continuously said upon for the election on June 13.

Conservative National Grand Party have stated number of educational policy promise; △Raise of teacher’s pay △Raising the budget of Ministry of Education by 15% △Reducing the average class numbers at school by 30 in five years.△A complete governmental financial support for children’s under five years old (western age) have been mentioned however not a number of possible estimated figures have not at all stated in their New Policy Book.

Millennium Democratic Party have stated some estimated figures, however detailed plans have not been stated in their book. △Promising the medical care support for 60,000 elderly people△financial support for Nursery school’s △Building 500 million new homes in ten years and other promises are very vague and disappointing the citizens

Democratic Labour Party also have announced unplanned policy to public △supporting exporting and importing finance towards open market economy via the MFF △Agricultural advanced payment policy. △Lowering interest rates for loans for agricultural related business yet they have not answered how they are going to fund these financial proposal.

Professor Jae Sang Kang, The Director of PPI said that; “Parities lack of answering our questionnaire clearly indicates that the guarantee that they promised are not valid, Detailed funding plans and its financial supplying routes are desperately needed to convince the voter.

PPI requested further detailed policy plans to all the parties prior to the Election Day. Policy particularly mainly consists of Education, Social Security, Environment, Regional economy and other public policy issues.

Comparative research on public pledges for each parties can be found on www.nec.go.kr for the voter’s best possible decision.

Jeong-Hun Kim jnghn@donga.com