LEE PROPOSES SUBSIDY TALKS

[Anchor Lead]

One of the key issues in presidential campaigns is how to help small businesses hit by the pandemic. When the chief chair of the PPP’s election committee proposed a 100-trillion-won subsidy plan before deferring it to after the election, Lee Jae-myung asked his rival to start discussing the issue right away.

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Democratic Party presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung held an unscheduled press conference. He made a proposal to his People Power Party counterpart Yoon Seok-youl to discuss compensations plans for small businesses. He took issue with PPP presidential campaign chairman Kim Chong-in’s remark about deferring a 100-trillion-won loss compensation plan to after the opposition party won the election.

[Soundbite] ​Lee Jae-myung(DP Presidential Candidate) : "When he deferred the compensation plan to after they win the election, doesn’t that mean he won’t put the plan into action if the PPP doesn’t win?"

​​Lee emphasized that even an aid of additional 100 trillion won falls far short of other countries’ assistance programs. He promised that the state will be responsible unconditionally in compensating and treating those who experience abnormal vaccine reactions.

[Soundbite] Lee Jae-myung(DP Presidential Candidate) : "The state will take full responsibility for people’s anxieties about adverse vaccine reactions, vaccine pass for teenagers and other vaccination issues."

At a meeting of a party reform committee organized to shatter old politics, Lee denounced both the ruling and opposition blocs for forming satellite parties by calling it a bizarre scheme. He proposed to bar a lawmaker from representing a district for more than three terms and abolish special privileges for National Assembly members. Lee is also reviewing a plan to not nominate any candidate for districts such as Cheongju and Anseong at the re-elections of National Assembly representatives held together with next year’s presidential election. The parliamentary representatives of those two cities were dismissed when they were convicted of violating the election law. The DP presidential candidate is visiting Gyeongju and Daegu today to kick off his four-day campaign in the Daegu and Gyeongsangbuk-do region.