[Insight & Opinion] Breaking Away from Monarchical President and Party Leader Through Lawmaker-Centered Parliamentary Party System

Party Leaders Dominate Ruling and Opposition Politics
Legislation of American-Style Primaries and Abolition of Mandatory Party Line Needed

[Asia Economy] Since the last presidential election, the top three parties have operated emergency committees. It is highly unusual that not only the defeated Democratic Party but also the victorious People Power Party formed emergency committees. This phenomenon appears to expose the "abnormality of Korean party politics due to factionalism."

The ruling party's functions have been paralyzed as President Yoon's close aides, known as ‘Yunhaekgwan,’ and former leader Lee Jun-seok engaged in legal battles. The political role of dialogue and compromise disappeared, and the ‘judicialization of politics,’ where political judgments are sought from judicial institutions, became rampant. The Democratic Party, led by Lee Jae-myung, has long lost diversity among its lawmakers, being captured by a hardline fandom called ‘Gaeddal (Daughters of Reform)’ and pushing a tough stance centered on the ‘Kim Geon-hee Special Prosecutor Act.’

Factional politics makes it difficult to implement common-sense and fairness-based livelihood politics and national unity demanded by the people, so fundamental measures are necessary. President Yoon needs to take the lead in political reform that dramatically improves inter-party relations. In particular, he should pay attention to the ‘political reform plan through parliamentary party system’ proposed at the seminar titled ‘Why Political Reform is Necessary,’ hosted on September 2 by People Power Party lawmakers Kang Min-guk and Choi Hyung-doo, and Democratic Party lawmakers Kim Young-bae and Lee Tan-hee, and present alternatives.

The significance of that seminar lies in the fact that both ruling and opposition parties gathered in a bipartisan manner to find clues to resolve hostile inter-party relations and factionalism. At the event, Professor Lim Sung-ho of Kyung Hee University’s Department of Political Science and Diplomacy suggested, "A mass party model centered on party members is difficult to operate well. The parliamentary party model centered on lawmakers seems relatively more realistic."

Regarding Professor Lim’s point, co-host and People Power Party lawmaker Choi Hyung-doo strongly agreed. He had already argued at the first plenary meeting of the National Assembly’s Political Reform Special Committee on August 18 that the monarchical party leader system is an obstacle to political development and must be abolished. He criticized, "In the past, the party leader system had meaning, but now the party leader’s nomination rights tie the lawmakers’ necks," and "A party leader who does not represent even 1% of the people coming in and manipulating inter-party politics shows political backwardness." Lawmaker Choi pointed out, "Instead of achieving substantial parliamentary party system, politics is hollowed out and fails to function as lawmakers line up every two years."

The parliamentary party system refers to the transfer of party leader authority to the party caucus and floor leader without a central party or external party leadership. This is commonly called the ‘American-style parliamentary party system.’ Parliamentary party system means escaping from the top-down party line and nomination rights dominated by monarchical presidents and party leaders, restoring lawmakers’ autonomy, and normalizing dialogue and deliberation functions among ruling and opposition lawmakers. For the parliamentary party system to work, legislation of the American-style primary election system, abolition of mandatory party line, and allowance of cross-voting between parties are necessary.

So far, the direction of political reform has failed to see the essence of the problem as the ‘vertical party-government-presidential office relationship and inter-party relations dominated by the monarchical president.’ It has not progressed to improving horizontal party-government-presidential office relations and introducing bottom-up nomination systems like the American-style primary election system. President Yoon used the relocation of the presidential office to Yongsan as a rationale to break away from the ‘monarchical president.’ Now, not only hardware such as location but also software such as systems need to be changed. If President Yoon leads the ruling party and inter-party relations toward the ‘parliamentary party system’ under the banner of ‘breaking away from the monarchical president and party leader,’ it will surely secure new momentum for state governance and become a new milestone in the history of political development.

Chae Jin-won, Professor at Kyung Hee University Public Governance Research Institute