Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon, selected as the People Power Party's candidate for Seoul mayor in the June 3 local elections, declared his determination to defend the mayoralty, saying, "If we surrender Seoul, the last brake to stop this administration's reckless drive will disappear, and Korea's democracy will face fatal danger."
Speaking at the People Power Party headquarters in Yeouido, Seoul, on the 18th, Oh said, "This local election is not a routine election that comes every four years, but the final battleground for the restoration of the rule of law and the balance of democracy." Oh defeated Rep. Park Soo-min (first-term, Seoul Gangnam-B) and former Rep. Yoon Hee-suk in the party's primary that day.
"How worried you must have been because of conservative politics that failed to play its role," Oh said. "Even for a company facing bankruptcy, if it is to transform itself and be reborn as an innovative firm, at least one competent employee must be kept."
Oh delivered sharp criticism of the government's real estate policy. "The real estate crisis we are witnessing now is exactly what the Democratic Party administration perpetrated five years ago, and no one else," he said. "In Seoul too, during 10 years of Democratic Party city administration that treated redevelopment and reconstruction as sins, housing supply entered an ice age, and left-wing civic groups used the Seoul Metropolitan Government as an ATM."
Regarding Jung Won-oh, the former Seongdong District chief who was selected as the Democratic Party's Seoul mayoral candidate, Oh said, "As candidate Jung's philosophy and thoughts about Seoul — the heart of Korea's future — are gradually being revealed, Seoul citizens will make a wise judgment." He added, "I believe candidate Jung's administrative philosophy will tie his own hands."
Immediately after Oh's nomination was confirmed, Democratic Party Seoul mayoral candidate Jung Won-oh wrote on his social networking service (SNS), "I sincerely offer my congratulations to Mayor Oh, who has been confirmed as the People Power Party's Seoul mayoral candidate." He added, "I hope this election will become a public forum where we compete confidently on policy over the 'capability' to take responsibility for citizens' lives and Seoul's future."
Checks against Oh also began in earnest. Park Kyung-mi, spokesperson for Jung's election committee, said in a commentary, "Is Mayor Oh's philosophy one that transforms like a chameleon?" She pointed out, "On SNS, he disparaged the former Democratic Party mayor's administration as 'buried in the philosophy that small is beautiful,' but in less than two days, he changed his words to 'the smaller, the more beautiful.'"
