Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon sharply criticized President Lee Jae-myung over the government's blanket survey of farmland and its housing policy, saying the administration should "stop looking among the people for targets to crack down on."
In a post on his Facebook page on the 27th titled "Mr. President, Stop Looking Among the People for Targets to Crack Down On," Oh said, "Many of the citizens I met during the Chuseok holiday complained, asking why they should be treated as speculators."
The government has been conducting the first blanket survey of farmland nationwide, running for two years from this year, to root out speculation and illegal use of farmland. This year, it carried out a basic survey from May to July covering farmland acquired since the Farmland Act took effect in 1996, followed by an in-depth, field-based survey from August through the end of the year. The survey cross-checks farmland registers, farm business records, public-interest direct payment data and records of agricultural input purchases to verify whether the land is actually being farmed.
The government views farmland speculation as a factor that pushes up farmland prices and makes it harder for young farmers and people returning to farming to secure land. In rural areas, however, there are concerns that cases in which owners cannot farm the land themselves because of inheritance or old age could also be treated as speculative holdings. The government and the ruling party have begun preparing supplementary steps, including drawing distinctions for cases with unavoidable circumstances and explaining that the survey results will not lead directly to forced disposal of the land.
Oh tied his criticism of the farmland survey to the current administration's housing policy. "It pushed through tough regulations first, putting the principle of owner-occupancy front and center, and then added exceptions and remedies each time the rules collided with reality," he said. "Something similar is happening with farmland."
He added, "Reality is always more complicated than the handful of exceptions the government has set out." He argued that "the very confidence that the administration can examine each of those countless circumstances and perfectly distinguish between speculation and good-faith ownership is arrogance and self-righteousness."
Oh stressed that the government's role is to present a vision for the country's future rather than to make citizens the object of regulation. "What will South Korea live on going forward, how will it build competitiveness amid the sweeping shift toward AI and advanced industries, and what kind of future will it open up for young people — a president should be showing the people that future," he said.
He also argued that the reforms the government should pursue must be different from regulations aimed at the people. "National reform that is directly tied to people's lives and their future is on an entirely different level from so-called crackdown-style cleanups of mountain valleys," Oh said. "Citizens who own a home and citizens who own land are not the ones the president should be fighting."
He continued, "What the president should be fighting is the rapidly changing security environment, the realignment of the global economic order, low growth and a low birth rate, the crisis in industrial competitiveness and the vanishing opportunities for young people." He urged the president to "fight for the people, not against them."
