The ruling Democratic Party(DP) and main opposition People Power Party’s(PPP) respective candidates for the April 7 Seoul mayoral by-election clashed during their first televised debate Monday night.

Real estate issues and the Moon Jae-in administration's anti-speculative policies dominated the debate amid an investigation into alleged speculation by employees at the state-run Korea Land and Housing Corporation(LH).

The DP's Park Young-sun grilled the PPP's Oh Se-hoon on allegations that Oh received three-point-65 billion won in 2009 in compensation for land in Seoul's Seocho district, after his involvement in the area being designated a residential zone.

Oh denied that he was aware of the land under his wife's name or the development plan.

Oh then criticized the Moon administration's policies aimed at curbing soaring housing prices, saying they have only served to exacerbate the problem and start a vicious economic cycle.

Acknowledging failures in the policies, Park vowed to introduce measures to help ease the public's ill feelings regarding the soaring prices.