Seoul mayor says he finds president's four consecutive SNS posts on multicultural policy 'troubling'

People Power Party leader Jang Dong-hyeok (right) and Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon pose for a photo at a policy forum held by the PPP Seoul chapter and the Seoul Metropolitan Government at the National Assembly members' office building on Tuesday. [Yonhap]
People Power Party leader Jang Dong-hyeok (right) and Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon pose for a photo at a policy forum held by the PPP Seoul chapter and the Seoul Metropolitan Government at the National Assembly members' office building on Tuesday. [Yonhap]

Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon said Tuesday he finds it "troubling" that President Lee Jae-myung has continued posting on social media about multicultural family support policies since announcing Wednesday that he would review whether to abolish preferential treatment for such families — and said what the president should really be addressing is the soaring cost of jeonse and monthly rent.

Oh made the remarks to reporters after attending a People Power Party and Seoul Metropolitan Government policy forum titled "World Heritage Preservation and the Future of the City: Finding a Path to Coexistence," held Tuesday morning at the National Assembly members' office building. While acknowledging the need to adjust policy priorities on multicultural support, Oh said the Seoul Metropolitan Government had already begun reviewing improvements to the relevant system before the president's social media posts drew attention to the issue. He also said the president's repeated SNS posts should instead be directed at the crisis in the jeonse and monthly rent market.

"The first official signal of the city's attention to this issue was what I raised at a senior staff meeting on the morning of the 26th," Oh said. "What I directed at the time was specifically about public daycare centers." He explained that there had been complaints and concerns from parents who felt pushed to lower priority because multicultural family children receive preferential placement in public daycare centers. "My point was clearly that while multicultural families are a group deserving of consideration, it is desirable that the underlying principle be upheld," he said.

"There should be no citizen who feels relative deprivation or disadvantage in any selection process," Oh said, adding that he had issued a work directive to adjust the system "rationally and carefully so that no household suffers unfair treatment." He said that two days after his internal meeting, the president's remarks were reported in the press and some outlets portrayed him as responding to the president. "That was something that had taken place in an internal meeting, so I was not even aware of the president's remarks at the time — I had clearly raised the issue as a work directive at a senior staff meeting two days earlier," he said.

Oh said he views the president's direction as positive. "Every citizen is naturally sensitive to feeling relatively disadvantaged, so I think this is a necessary opportunity to adjust priorities in a rational way," he said.

However, Oh said he felt uneasy watching the president post on SNS four consecutive days on the issue. "If the president had instead expressed concern and offered solutions regarding the reality of jeonse and monthly rent prices rising without limit, I think that would have been a move that earned far greater public support and reassured more people," he said.

Oh also responded to a post in which President Lee shared a news article forecasting a decline in Seoul home prices, writing that he was "enduring the difficult path toward normalization of the asset market." Oh said residents living in jeonse or monthly rent arrangements in Seoul — particularly those with lease renewals coming up within about six months and those facing imminent moves — "are in pain and desperately hoping the government will somehow find a solution." He added that using expressions like "asset market readjustment" or "enduring" is "very likely to be read as simply waiting for time to pass."

"This is absolutely not a matter that will resolve itself with the passage of time," Oh said. "Hoping that things will naturally work out without a policy shift is the most incompetent and most blameworthy approach a government can take," he said.


ikson@heraldcorp.com