hankyoreh

By Shin Seung-keun, staff reporter

Members of the Saenuri Party (NFP) were visibly flustered over their candidate Park Geun-hye’s performance in the Dec. 16 televised debate with the Democratic United Party’s Moon Jae-in.

Just after the debate, a spokesperson for the party gave positive marks for Park’s performance, saying she had “clearly shown in the three debates that she is a prepared candidate, an experienced candidate, and a dignified candidate, presenting realistic policies for the issues affecting society.”

But many within the party saw the first and only two-candidate debate as a disaster for Park. In particular, they commented that Park let her guard down and showed her lack of understanding about key policies even after being given ample warning that the Unified Progressive Party’s candidate Lee Jung-hee was bowing out.

Park was able to get away with reading from pre-prepared materials in the first two debates (which featured three candidates), since time limits imposed a question-and-answer format for most of the issues. In contrast, the two-way debate’s format of Q&A followed immediately by a rebuttal and a counterargument meant that a candidate would be ill-equipped to respond without a sufficient understanding of the policies.

“She wasn’t prepared at all for the debate,” said one Saenuri lawmaker. “She expected to have a debate where she simply read things off her notes, and she had no clue how to deal with the unexpected.”

A party official quoted another Saenuri lawmaker who watched the debate as saying Park’s debating skills were no better than “an average housewife.”

“I’m not sure what the aides who prepped her for it actually did, or if they did anything,” the official said.

In particular, party observers noted several problems with Park’s approach, including repeatedly making illogical statements such as “I’ll do it if I become president” or raising her arm to one side while leaning back.

Party spokesman Park Sun-kyu voiced suspicions that Lee had held prior discussions with the DUP on the two-candidate format.

“It seems as though Moon Jae-in prepared a great deal and came out more aggressively,” Park Sun-kyu said.

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