According to the National Election Broadcasting Debate Commission, the 1^st policy debate for public official elections was held on March 27 in relation to June 4 local elections.

The 1^st policy debate was moderated by the current member of KBS News Committee and attended by the spokespersons within the Saenuri Party and the Democratic Party, the Vice Floor Leader of the Unified Progressive Party and the First Vice Floor Leader of the Justice Party to discuss the areas of welfare and education.

In the area of welfare, ways to solve blind areas in the welfare system and ways to reform the medical care system were discussed under the theme of ‘How to Deal with Imbalance in the Welfare System?’ while issues with history textbooks and private education expenses were approached under the theme of ‘Should Educational Reality Be Fine As It Is?’ in the area of education.

The debate was aired live through KBS, MBC and SBS channels and can be reviewed via the ‘Review the Debate’ service on the website www.debates.go.kr.

In relation to the policy debate, any citizen may suggest questions and topics and take part in the public evaluation through the website mentioned above and can be offered gift vouchers if their suggestions are selected.

In accordance with Article 82-3 of the Public Official Election Act, 3 political debates are scheduled until May 14, the day before the candidate registration starts for the 6^th local elections. One political debate is to be held a month.

Meanwhile, the NEBDC is planning to have each of the 3 policy debates moderated in different ways (1^st: intensive debate among the participants, 2^nd: professional panel, 3^rd: public Q & A) to bring more interest and energy to the debates as well as to attract voters attention.

For instance, in the 1^st policy debate each participant was allocated 10 minutes out of the total amount of time for free discussion and answering supplementary questions asked by the moderator while there was no time limit for discussion on each subtopic.

The NEBDC expressed its hope that the 1^st policy debate would serve as a good opportunity for voters to clearly understand views and stances of each political party on ‘Welfare and Education’.