"Bilateral Discussion" People's Power, 'Four-Party Discussion' Notice of No Participation in Working-Level Negotiations

<Anchor>

The situation is getting complicated as each party is in a war of nerves over how to debate the presidential candidates.

The People's Power counter-proposed a separate "Let's have a bilateral discussion," and the Democratic Party responded by saying, "Let's have a bilateral discussion and a four-party discussion."

It seems that the four-party TV discussion on the 31st will practically be cancelled. 

Correspondent Kang Cheong-wan.

<Reporter> 

As terrestrial broadcasters proposed a multilateral TV debate for the presidential candidates on the 31st or February 3rd to the four opposition parties, the people's power threw a card to the Democrats, saying, "Let's have a separate bilateral discussion."

[Seong Il-jong / People's Power Rep.: The four-party debate is just an increase in the number of three court debates hosted by the National Election Commission, but if necessary, the four parties will meet in the future...

.]

He said that a bilateral discussion is more urgent, and that we should have a discussion first between candidates Lee Jae-myung and Yoon Seok-yeol, regardless of broadcast broadcasts.

The Democrats said they would "accept it for now" and demanded that they also undergo multilateral discussions.

[Park Jumin / Democratic Party member: Is it not possible to use the bilateral discussion as a means of avoiding the four-party discussion?

Actively participate in the four-party discussion in the sacramental stage…

.]

Justice Party candidate Shim Sang-jung strongly criticized the debate between the Democratic Party and the People's Power as 'violation of the election law'.

[Sim Sang-jung / Justice Party Presidential Candidate: Promoting bilateral debate is clearly discrimination, and it is illegal to rig the election campaign of large parties and violates the Election Act.]

People's Party candidate Ahn Cheol-soo also protested, saying it was "a denial of democracy."

[Ahn Cheol-soo/People's Party Presidential Candidate: It seems scary to discuss with me.

Is it really worthy of a leader in democracy to ignore the court's decision?

.]

As the People's Power announced that it would not participate in the working-level negotiations for the presidential candidate's four-party debate scheduled for today (28th), the four-party debate on the 31st, during the Lunar New Year holiday, was virtually canceled.