[Why & Next]① Yoon, Why Did He Pull Out the Political Reform Card?

President Yoon Mentions Need for Major Multi-Member District System from New Year
Political Circles Also Acknowledge Harms of 21st Satellite Parties
Leading Election Reform to Shift Power in a Divided National Assembly

[Asia Economy Reporter Naju-seok] From the beginning of the new year, the redistricting reform has been heating up the political sphere. This follows President Yoon Suk-yeol mentioning the need to reform the current 'single-member district system' for National Assembly elections into a 'multi-member district system' during his New Year's interview. Even Kim Jin-pyo, the Speaker of the National Assembly from the opposition party, pledged to complete the revision of the election law, including redistricting reform, by the end of March, accelerating the discussions.

According to Article 24-2, Paragraph 1 of the current Public Official Election Act on the 9th, National Assembly electoral districts must be finalized one year before the general election. For the districts to be delineated, various regulations such as the number of National Assembly seats must be established, and already, voices calling for reform of the current single-member district system have surged in the political arena. President Yoon unusually mentioned specific election system reform measures, making it a key topic in the political world for the new year. The 'political reform' initiated by President Yoon is permeating Yeouido's political circles, and as the ruling party takes the lead in redistricting reform, the political calculations have become complicated.

Why Did President Yoon Bring Up Redistricting Reform Now?

[Image source=Yonhap News]

The multi-member district system proposed by President Yoon is a system where two or more representatives (National Assembly members) are elected from one electoral district. Compared to the current single-member district system, which elects 'one person' with the most votes in one district, it has the advantage of reducing wasted votes and preventing the chronic 'blind voting' based on regionalism that has been pointed out in every election. It also allows minority parties with weak regional bases to be elected, thereby realizing a multi-party system.

The call to change the single-member district system, which has been in place since 1988, has continued steadily for 35 years. Former President Roh Moo-hyun also proposed reforming the single-member district system into a multi-member district system during his administration. In his first year in office, on April 2, 2003, during a National Assembly policy speech, Roh requested, "From next year, please revise the election law by bipartisan agreement so that a specific party cannot monopolize more than two-thirds of the seats in a specific region," and in 2005, he even proposed a 'grand coalition' card to push for redistricting reform. At that time, the main opposition party, the Grand National Party (now People Power Party), was asked to agree, and in return, the prime minister and ministerial appointment rights would be handed over to the opposition, but the Grand National Party did not accept it.

President Yoon stated during his presidential campaign that "I personally have preferred the multi-member district system even before entering politics to ensure proper representation of the people." During his tenure as Prosecutor General, he fiercely opposed the Moon Jae-in administration's 'complete removal of prosecutorial investigative authority (Geomsu Wanbak)' by the Democratic Party, which seems to stem from his experience of the ruling party pushing legislation through by majority rule. In the multi-member district system, multiple candidates from different parties can be elected in one district, making it difficult for one party to monopolize the National Assembly seats as in the current political structure.

Some in the political sphere analyze that President Yoon brought up the multi-member district system as a card to reverse the unfavorable political situation of a minority ruling party and majority opposition in his second year in office. It is believed that President Yoon, who has emphasized 'fairness and principles' since his inauguration, expects to preempt the initiative in election system reform as an extension of his recent drive on the 'three major reforms' (labor reform, pension reform, education reform). Former National Intelligence Service Director Park Ji-won also wrote on Facebook on the 3rd, "We lost the initiative on this (election system reform)," and "The Democratic Party took the agenda but the public discussion was again taken away by President Yoon Suk-yeol."

April This Year, the 'Deadline' for Redistricting Reform

Eun-Joo Lee, a Justice Party lawmaker, is attending a party meeting held at the National Assembly on the 12th and delivering an opening speech. The lawmaker has been continuing a hunger strike at the National Assembly's Rotunda Hall since the 8th, urging political reform decisions from both the Democratic Party of Korea and the People Power Party. Photo by Dong-Joo Yoon doso7@

Even before President Yoon mentioned the multi-member district system, there was great expectation in the political sphere that there would be significant reform in this year's redistricting. The biggest reason is the awareness that the 'semi-proportional representation system' introduced in the last general election ultimately created the 'satellite parties' problem.

The proportional representation system allocates seats according to the percentage of votes each party receives. Since the total number of seats is determined by the party vote share, even if regional candidates lose, if the party's nationwide vote share is high, proportional representatives fill the seats. In the 20th National Assembly, after physical clashes, a semi-proportional representation system was passed applying the 'proportional cap' to only 30 of the 47 proportional seats. However, the two major parties created 'satellite parties' that only nominated proportional representatives, electing many proportional representatives and undermining the system's purpose. Therefore, there was an urgent need to change the election system to prevent the emergence of satellite parties. There is little disagreement between the ruling and opposition parties on the need to address this issue.

Earlier, 49 lawmakers from both ruling and opposition parties discussed the need for election system reform through 'bipartisan political reform continuous discussions' since the end of last year. Various ideas such as expanding proportional representation, multi-member districts, and regional proportional representation emerged, but the underlying awareness was that the current election system must be changed. The current system, where only one candidate with the most votes in a district is elected (single-member district system), inevitably leads to 1) many wasted votes, 2) promotion of a two-party system, and 3) politics of exclusion and hatred within a hostile symbiotic relationship, which became the driving force for redistricting reform.

Moreover, the Democratic Party, the largest party in the National Assembly, adopted a 'Resolution for National Unity and Political Change' at the August 28 party convention last year, pledging to complete political reform, including a proportional representation system that prevents satellite parties and a regional proportional representation system guaranteeing 'multi-party coalition politics,' by April this year. Since political reform was a major campaign issue for the Democratic Party, the need to achieve some results before the general election has increased.