With fiery exchanges of accusations, criticisms and insults, the first televised debate among the three presidential candidates on Tuesday was dynamic, but unlikely to have been substantial enough to move the voters, experts said.

“At this rate, no candidate will have an easy time in garnering new votes through the debate,” said politics professor Yun Seong-yi of Kyung Hee University.

In keeping with the election law, the debate invited the candidates from the three parliamentary blocs with at least five seats ― the Saenuri Party’s Park Geun-hye, the Democratic United Party’s Moon Jae-in and the Unified Progressive Party’s Lee Jung-hee. They are to gather two more times on Dec. 10 and Dec. 16 to discuss social welfare, education and economic issues.

“The format of the debate makes it difficult for any specific one to outshine another. It is most likely that they will manage to cement their existing support base but fail in winning over the others’ votes,” Yun said.

Despite her meager 0.7 percent-or-so support, leftist candidate Lee came out swinging against Park, openly admitting she was only running to bring the conservative flag-bearer down.

The debate, in which each candidate was given equal time to question and respond, quickly lost order upon Lee’s blitz, with Park visibly offended and Moon apparently lost.

Observers gave differing views on who did better among the two leading candidates, with some saying Park maintained her calm despite Lee’s offensive but failed to deliver effective comebacks. Some others said Moon presented himself as trustworthy but failed to stand out between the bickering Park and Lee.

“All in all, it seems insufficient for Moon to achieve what he really needs, the swing votes that are left hanging upon the candidacy withdrawal of former independent candidate Ahn Cheol-soo,” Yun added. Moon currently lags behind Park in polls by nearly 5 percentage points.

“Generally, even if the debate is a fierce one-on-one battle, with the participants engaging in heated exchanges over key issues, it is still difficult for it to bring substantial changes to the support ratings. The Tuesday debate and the upcoming ones are thus most likely to go as far as giving supporters of each side some level of catharsis and nothing more.”

Politics professor at Myongji University Shin Yul agreed. “Although there were views that the debate will act as a critical moment for the presidential election, it appears unlikely,” he said, referring to the 1 percent changes seen in support ratings upon the debates held before the 1997 and 2002 presidential elections.

Both the campaign teams of Park and Moon also raised issue with the debate format, particularly over how the minority candidate dominated the narrative.

“It was a shameful debate where the verification of a candidate’s qualification, respect to the counterpart and manners to the public were all lost,” said Park Sun-kyu, spokesman for the Saenuri Party.

“(For Lee) it was only about hostility without the respect or manners to the others. And for that neither Park nor Moon was able to show what they have prepared as the moderator failed to control the situation,” he added, calling on the National Election Commission to come up with measures for the remaining two debates.

The DUP was on the same page.

“Because Lee excessively confronted Park, Moon’s vision and policy proposals were overshadowed. I believe many people will feel regretful about the way Lee attended the debate,” said DUP spokesman Park Yong-jin.

Professor Yun, meanwhile, pointed to the fundamental limits of television debates.

“Without the culture where candidates compete on pledges (in elections), television debates are only good for confirming the candidates’ image or their gift of gab.”

For the debate to become a ground on which the candidates can fight over pledges for the voters to choose from, each participant should be trained and equipped with sturdy infrastructural support of policymakers, he added.

By Lee Joo-hee (jhl@heraldcorp.com)