South Korean Presidential election roiled by coffee beans, Chanel bags and room salon

South Korea's presidential race devolves into personal attacks and policy disputes, overshadowing meaningful debate amid political chaos.

South Korea’s Presidential race has devolved into personal attacks and petty disputes, drowning out meaningful policy debate after former conservative leader Yoon Suk Yeol’s ouster over his martial law fiasco.

The bitter mudslinging between Liberal Frontrunner Lee Jae-myung and conservative opponent Kim Moon Soo escalated during the final Presidential debate last week, with Mr. Lee branding Mr. Kim “Yoon Suk Yeol’s avatar” and Mr. Kim denouncing Mr. Lee as a “harbinger of monster politics and dictatorship."

Consistently trailing Mr. Lee in opinion polls, Mr. Kim has focused on dredging up his legal troubles and casting the outspoken Democratic Party candidate as a dangerous, hardline populist whose economic promises are detached from reality.

For days, Mr. Kim’s camp has seized on what appeared to be a casual comment by Mr. Lee about the profitability of running coffee shops during a May 16 campaign rally in Gunsan city.

Mr. Lee was touting his past policy as Gyeonggi governor in 2019, when he relocated unlicensed food vendors from the province's popular mountain streams to clean up and revitalize tourist areas.

Mr. Lee said he offered to help vendors transition to legitimate businesses and suggested it would be far more profitable to sell coffee than their labor-intensive chicken porridge. Mr. Lee said he noted that a cup of coffee could sell for 8,000 to 10,000 won ($5.8 to $7.3), while the raw cost of beans was just 120 won (9 cents).

The remarks quickly struck a nerve in a country where the rapid spread of small coffee shops has come to symbolize the struggles of the self-employed in a decaying job market.