Democratic Party local election candidates are indiscriminately making pledges to give money as if they had agreed. [Image=Yonhap News]

Democratic Party local election candidates are indiscriminately making pledges to give money as if they had agreed.

Woo Sung-bin, a Democratic Party candidate for the mayor of Gijang-gun, Busan, has declared that he will provide 1 million won per person in livelihood support funds to all residents. The plan is to provide 4 million won in local currency to a household of four.

He grandly framed this massive cash handout as the practice of the Lee Jae-myung administration's philosophy. He also did not forget the shallow showmanship of moving the mayor's office to the first floor and live-streaming executive meetings on YouTube.

Is Winning the Election All That Matters?… The Democratic Party's Moral Hazard

When politicians' language degenerates, even the original meanings of words are grotesquely distorted. The dictionary definition of "philosophy" is the study that explores the fundamental principles of human life and the world. However, in the leftist world of South Korea in 2026, the blatant act of bribery, using citizens' taxes to buy citizens' votes, is nobly called philosophy.

Let's dissect the reality of the philosophy that candidate Woo proudly upholds with dry arithmetic.

Gijang-gun currently has a population of about 178,000. To give 1 million won to every resident would require an astronomical sum of 178 billion won in cash. Gijang-gun's annual budget is approximately 800 billion won. In other words, this is a declaration to burn more than 20% of a local government's annual budget as a one-time cashback solely for winning the mayoral election.

He boldly promised to secure this enormous financial resource by drastically cutting unnecessary administrative costs and ostentatious projects. It's outrageous. To cut 20% of the budget would require halting the fundamental metabolism of local governments, including road maintenance, waste disposal, and essential welfare networks for the elderly and children.

Squeezing like a dry towel to create 178 billion won by slaughtering essential infrastructure budgets, and then dividing that into 1 million won installments to put into voters' wallets. Is there any more horrific and grander ostentatious project in this world than squandering one-fifth of a local government's budget on election cash handouts?

Ultimately, the essence of this pledge is a grand Ponzi scheme that hides behind the false pretense of blocking special favors for the local elite, sucking the lifeblood of the local government that future generations will need to use.

“Crime is Philosophy, Theft is Livelihood?”

The performances he presented as Lee Jae-myung's philosophy are also a tragic black comedy. The idea of installing CCTV in the mayor's office and live-streaming executive meetings on YouTube is not for transparent administration.

It is merely a third-rate reality show to certify to his supporters that he is also a perfect avatar of XXX, by replicating Lee Jae-myung's tiresome governance manual, armed with "cider" communication and a strong fandom.

Local elections should be a fiercely competitive arena of policies, designing the future of the region and contemplating how to efficiently allocate limited resources. However, on the bizarre philosophical stage created by the precedent of Lee Jae-myung, the 2026 election landscape has been reduced to a legal auction house. It has become a league of thieves betting on who can more shamelessly and largely steal others' money to slip to voters.

The act of buying voters' votes by diverting 20% of the budget is not philosophy. It is simply a vulgar embezzlement of trying to buy power with other people's money, and a vote-buying crime that destroys the foundation of democracy.

What use is it for those who call crime philosophy and package theft as livelihood to move the mayor's office to the first floor and install cameras? The end of a city that opened its gates, intoxicated by 178 billion won worth of false philosophy, is always an empty treasury and complete bankruptcy.

◆ Author Park Ju-hyun

Composer, music director, columnist, and essayist. She actively expresses her opinions on political, current affairs, and social issues on Facebook, gaining widespread resonance. She published the essay collection "Crossing the Stormy Seas."