The higher the expectation, the greater the disappointment; that sums up what most Korean voters felt after watching the first presidential debate on Tuesday night.
The poorly designed format of the three-way discussion turned what could have been a precious opportunity for a substance-starved audience to gain some insight, into an exhibition of lame excuses and one-sided arguments. Unnecessarily complicated rules and rigid time limits kept candidates dilly-dallying, resulting in annoyingly frequent cautions from the moderator.
The format also kept the participants from making counterarguments right after, much less in the middle of, an opponent’s answer, unlike in most debates. Such a ban on prompt rebuttals made it difficult for them to counter others’ statements, leading to a monotonous Q&A session.
More fundamentally, the trilateral debate itself was the problem, allowing a third-party candidate with a paltry 0.7-percent support rating to compete equally with the two main contenders each boasting more than a 40 percent support rate. Lee Jung-hee of the splinter Unified Progressive Party (UPP) even stole the show with her uninhibited, or intemperate, attacks on the ruling conservative party’s candidate, Park Geun-hye.
Nor was she of much help to liberal competitor, Moon Jae-in, snatching away the latter’s chances to offer more reasonable criticism of Park. Lee clearly crossed the line and shot herself in the foot when she told Park, ``If you still don’t know, I’ll tell you. The reason why I am here is to make you fall.” The progressive nominee shouldn’t have made this remark, which tarnished even her sometimes pinpointed accusations of Park and her party, while perpetuating the popular impression of the UPP as a radical, unruly group.
The reckless rush by Lee, who had little to lose in the first place, made rating the performances of the other two runners appear to be almost meaningless. If anything, however, Park put up a relatively good defense of her advantageous standing by avoiding major mistakes, but appeared to just read answers someone else had written for her. On the other hand, Moon looked more stable and relaxed, but failed to threaten Park and narrow the gap with the front-runner. Sometimes, if seemed as if he forgot he was the chaser, not the chased.
At the highlight of the Park-Moon clash over inter-Korean policy, Moon, who was chief of staff for former President Roh Moo-hyun, referred to the peaceful relationship between the Koreas during the Roh administration, which Park described as a ``false peace” bought with money.
In a more effective debate, Moon could have shot back why the worst peace is better than the best war. Likewise, Park should have been allowed the opportunity to dig more tenaciously into Moon’s flip-flopping about Pyongyang’s persistent attempts to neutralize the inter-Korean maritime border. Instead, both candidates had to be content with just touching each other’s sore points.
All this shows why the two main contenders should have a one-on-one, no-holds-barred debate with minimal interruption from a third debater or moderator. Park and her Saenuri Party should immediately accept the opposition’s proposal.
Otherwise, it will be surprising if the viewing ratings for the two remaining debates do not halve from Tuesday’s near 30 percent.