DP PRES. CANDIDATE SHIFTS POLICY STANCE

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Turning to the presidential race, Lee Jae-myung has indicated a shift in his position on introducing a public land ownership tax, saying he will not push forward with it if the people do not support it. The ruling party explains the change is based on a pragmatic approach. However, the ruling party candidate is likely to face backlash if he repeatedly reverses his key policies.

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Lee Jae-myung says he will be flexible with a land ownership tax, one of his key campaign pledges he introduced as a way to discourage people from seeking unearned income. This suggests that he will not push forward with the new property tax with no public consent.

[Soundbite] Lee Jae-myung(DP Presidential Candidate) : "I will have to give up political power if I increase a burden without public consent. I’d like to first clarify that I will never press ahead with my policy unilaterally with no public consent."

This is a far cry from his stance some half a month ago when he denounced opponents of the tax as absurd and senseless. This position shift shows Lee’s willingness to give up even his key policy if opponents outnumber supporters. In a recent KBS survey, six out of ten respondents were negative about the introduction of the land ownership tax. Last month, he made similar explanations when retracting the proposal to distribute universal pandemic-related relief payouts over which he had clashed with the Ministry of Economy and Finance. Lee called it a pragmatic approach, while the ruling party praised it as evidence of the candidate’s flexibility.

[Soundbite] Park Wan-joo(DP Chief Policymaker(Nov. 18)) : "Seeing him make a practical, realistic decision, I thought he was far more flexible than I expected."

However, the opposition bloc condemned Lee for being inconsistent. They said that a presidential candidate’s policies are supposed to set a future direction for society and it would be undesirable for a presidential candidate to repeatedly change his campaign pledges based on political calculations and public opinions. Lee attended a debate hosted by the Korea Broadcasting Journalists Club on Thursday morning. Later in the day, he visited the Kim Dae-jung Presidential Library and Museum and vowed to carry on with the legacies and spirit of the late former president.