Gyeongsilryeon Evaluates Campaign Promises of Gwangju Mayoral Candidates Kang Ki-jung, Joo Ki-hwan, and Jang Yeon-ju

Kang Ki-jung, No Criteria for Selecting All-Day Care Recipients, No Details on Benefits or Measures to Prevent Service Overlap

Ju Gi-hwan, No Measures to Protect Small Businesses or Resolve Conflicts Due to Large Shopping Mall Attraction

Jan

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Junho] The Gwangju Economic Justice Practice Citizens' Coalition Voter Movement Headquarters announced the evaluation results of the three major core pledges of candidates running for the Gwangju Metropolitan City Mayor in the June 1 local elections.

This evaluation was conducted by a policy verification team consisting of Kyungsilryeon policy committee members and regional Kyungsilryeon, based on three evaluation indicators: specificity, reformability, and feasibility.

The verification team evaluated whether the issues are problems faced by Gwangju City, whether the core pledges were presented based on accurate diagnosis, whether the pledges are specific and reformative, and how feasible the implementation plans and funding methods are.

The evaluation targets were candidates from the three major parties who entered the National Assembly running for Gwangju Mayor. The evaluation was conducted based on the responses to the three major core pledges received after public inquiries to each candidate.

For the three major core pledges evaluated, if the response documents were collected, the evaluation was based on the content of the responses. For candidates who did not respond or refused to answer, the evaluation was inevitably based on the core pledges registered with the Central Election Commission.

First, Democratic Party candidate Kang Ki-jung’s core pledges are ▲ Promotion of a five-stage full-day care guarantee system by life cycle ▲ Introduction of three public value household benefits and farmer and participation allowances ▲ Realization of a healthy city through just climate action.

The full-day care guarantee system is positive in that it supplements and diversifies blind spots in existing care programs, but it is unclear whether the target is based on age or household income recognition.

The details of the benefits are also not clearly stated, resulting in low specificity.

Childcare faces issues such as service overlap and poor linkage, but no specific improvement plans for the delivery system were presented.

Also, various allowance systems such as youth allowances and farmer allowances are already implemented by local governments. Since allowance systems clearly define recipients, they can be valuable policies to achieve goals targeting specific groups.

However, since they are funded through fiscal expenditure, there are concerns about feasibility in financially weak local governments.

Regarding the healthy city pledge, the project content expresses the intention to proceed based on two pillars: elite sports and general public sports.

However, there is no explanation of what specific projects will be promoted and how these will impact national, regional, and social reforms, making it difficult to assess the value of regional innovation and reform. Despite the need for considerable budget investment for sports promotion, no specific budget scale is presented, limiting the assessment of feasibility.

People Power Party candidate Joo Ki-hwan’s core pledges are ▲ Establishment of an AI mobility convergence industrial belt ▲ Attraction of a large complex shopping mall ▲ Creation of a complex amusement park and leisure park 'G Land.'

The establishment of the AI mobility convergence industrial belt in Gwangju is practically underway. The focus appears excessively on physical construction projects such as industrial belt formation, with no comprehensive plans for talent acquisition, research and development, or attracting related companies.

Regarding funding, the need for nearly 10 trillion won was suggested without specific grounds. The expression of the implementation period simply as 2023?2032 without phased approaches is unclear in terms of rationale.

Additionally, the pledge to attract a large complex shopping mall was a campaign promise during President Yoon Seok-yeol’s candidacy, and candidate Joo seems to have made this pledge as part of fulfilling the presidential campaign promise. While complex shopping malls have advantages, they also bring disadvantages such as contraction of local commercial districts that need to be addressed.

Therefore, before deciding which companies to attract, plans to resolve conflicts with Gwangju’s small business owners, self-employed, alley markets, and traditional markets should be presented first.

Also, the plan to revitalize Gwangju Family Land through 5 billion won of reinvestment over four years by Gwangju Family Land Co., Ltd. is difficult to assess in terms of reinvestment capacity and willingness. Furthermore, the 15 billion won investment plan requires prior consensus with citizens.

Candidate Jang Yeon-ju’s core pledges are ▲ Eco-friendly free transportation ▲ Youth job guarantee system ▲ Establishment of an industrial safety and health center.

First, to achieve eco-friendly free transportation, a Green Public Transportation Corporation will be established to gradually implement a fully public bus system and replace vehicles with eco-friendly ones.

Also, free transportation will be implemented first for youth and young adults, then expanded to the elderly, with a complete overhaul of routes. Various practical plans such as active linkage with subway lines 1 and 2 are also presented.

The presentation of specific and diverse implementation projects and plans as pledges is meaningful.

On the other hand, the youth job guarantee system pledge proposes jobs created with city and provincial funds as public jobs, raising questions about employment sustainability. While reformative as a policy prepared in a region lacking private job creation, the sustainability of public jobs operated with city and provincial funds is questionable.

Recalling last year’s Hakdong disaster and this year’s Hwajeong-dong I-Park collapse accident, the establishment of an industrial safety and health center and the need for related industrial safety systems are urgent. Considering that industrial safety and accident prevention fall under the Ministry of Employment and Labor, a central government department, it seems necessary to prepare plans for linkage and cooperation.

Meanwhile, People Power Party candidate Joo Ki-hwan did not respond to policy inquiries, so the evaluation was based on the five major candidate pledges posted on the Central Election Commission website.