hankyoreh

The National Election Commission (NEC) ruled yesterday that the Ministry of Strategy and Finance violated election law with its recent announcement of analysis results of main political parties’ welfare policies. To prevent government interference in election campaigns, the Public Official Election Act insists on political neutrality from public servants and state organizations. The NEC was correct in its decision. By making an announcement just one week before election day that plays up only the excessiveness of the welfare budget, the ministry could have an improper influence on voter sentiment.
The ministry says it strove to maintain neutrality and didn’t include party-by-party analyses in order to avoid influencing the election. This is just quibbling, and the ministry needs to take proper responsibility for its actions. The announced findings, namely that implementing the ruling and opposition party’s pledges would cost an additional 268 trillion won over five years, or at least 53 trillion won a year, border on fiction. The budget presented by the New Frontier Party (NFP) for its “lifetime customized welfare services” amounts to 15 trillion won a year, while the additional budget for the Democratic United Party, the self-professed “working class party,” is no more than 33 trillion won. It is impossible not to question whether the motive here was to use financial soundness as a trump card for branding expanded welfare services as “populism.”
It was just a few months ago that the ruling and opposition parties were fussing over welfare, claiming to prioritize “economic democracy” and forming special committees to work on it. This was the result of an outpouring of citizen hopes for increased welfare services and a fair society in the wake of last year’s free school lunch flap.
Underlying the message was the belief that we should prevent a conglomerate monopoly and assist those who struggle to compete in today’s dog-eat-dog economy. Amid a global crisis, the livelihoods of South Korea’s working class in a small-scale open economy centering around large corporations took an even greater blow due to the regressive policies of the Lee Myung-bak administration.
After all the noise the NFP made about welfare, all that’s left of it is free care for children under the age of five. The parts about halving tuition rates, encouraging couples to have children, and measures for the elderly have disappeared. Meanwhile, the DUP wants to expand welfare services while maintaining financial soundness without any new taxes. This is not only inadequate to answer the demands of the day, but questionable in its feasibility.
The problem in South Korea is not that there is an excess of social welfare. Welfare service funding amounts to 9% of the South Korean gross domestic product, ten percent below the 19% average for OECD member nations. The additional funding pledged by the NFP would be another 1% of the GDP, narrowing the gap with the other OECD countries by no more than one-tenth.
Politicians seem oblivious to the lack of assistance suffered by ordinary people in this country. In light of many needy citizens, we are seeing NFP leader Park Geun-hye claiming the “NFP is letting itself be dragged around by the welfare issue,” and the same Ministry of Strategy and Finance that should be looking after working class livelihoods warning instead of welfare populism. That is deception.
　　
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