Democratic Party Begins 'Public Discussion on Election System Reform'

Organized by the Political Innovation Committee... Conducting Public Deliberation on Electoral District System

[Asia Economy Reporter Oh Ju-yeon] The Democratic Party of Korea is set to officially begin internal public opinion gathering on the electoral district system reform.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

On the 12th, Kim Seong-hwan, the chairman of the Policy Committee, stated at a press briefing, "Holding another election under the current system is neither responsible nor proper to the people. Therefore, considering vote equality, proportionality, and the alleviation of regionalism, we will start a public discourse process for electoral system reform."

Chairman Kim said, "In the last election, we experimented with the semi-proportional representation system through various efforts, but due to the emergence of satellite parties and the overall shortage of proportional seats, the system's intended purpose was not realized."

He explained, "At last week's Political Innovation Committee meeting, it was decided that the electoral system would be finalized through the full chairman committee by April 5, one year before the election, regarding the electoral district delineation issue. In relation to this, the Political Innovation Committee will host a forum this week to officially start the party's public discourse on the electoral district system reform."

Regarding the government's heating cost measures, he criticized, "It has been over two weeks since President Yoon Seok-yeol instructed to devise measures for the middle and lower-income classes, but no measures have been established. Meanwhile, heating costs in February have risen even more, causing public distress, yet instead of measures, there are only lies."

Chairman Kim pointed out, "The People Power Party's poster on the streets stating 'Heating cost support for 2.77 million households' is an exaggeration. Among the 1.17 million households receiving energy vouchers and 1.6 million households receiving heating cost discounts, 980,000 households overlap, so the actual number of supported households is 1.79 million."

He added, "The Democratic Party proposes to quickly pass a supplementary budget for energy price support and a supplementary budget of 30 trillion won, but it seems like talking to deaf ears. Even now, I hope that at least one-tenth of the energy budget used to attack the opposition is spent on the livelihood economy."