Kim Ki-hyun "No Value in Even Proposing the Agenda"
Joo Ho-young "Our Party Does Not Intend to Increase the Number of Lawmakers"
Kim Ki-hyun, leader of the People Power Party, said on the 20th, "The number of National Assembly seats will never be increased."
On the same day, at the party's Supreme Council meeting held at the National Assembly in the morning, Kim said, "The 'semi-proportional representation system' created primarily by the Democratic Party, a system of unclear nationality and identity, must be corrected, but suddenly there is talk of increasing the number of seats by exploiting this gap." He added, "Our party will never allow the number of seats to increase under any circumstances," and "It is not even worth putting on the agenda."
Joo Ho-young, floor leader of the same party, also stated at the meeting, "It was made clear at the party members' meeting that the number of seats should not be increased," and criticized, "Since there are problems with the current single-member district system, there is an opinion to change the election system to a large-scale election to avoid factional politics, but this was not reflected at all, and two proposals to increase the number of seats by 50 were submitted and passed."
Kim Ki-hyun, the leader of the People Power Party, is speaking at the Supreme Council meeting held at the National Assembly in Yeouido, Seoul, on the 20th. Photo by Kim Hyun-min kimhyun81@
Floor leader Joo said, "We have convened the entire Political Reform Special Committee (Jeonggae Special Committee) to investigate the circumstances," and "I want to make it clear that increasing the number of seats is against our party's will, and while we agree on fixing the problems of the current election system, we will never accept or allow the trick of increasing the number of seats as a method."
Earlier, the National Assembly's Political Reform Special Committee (Jeonggae Special Committee) held a subcommittee meeting on the 17th of this month and approved three election system reform proposals to be submitted to the full committee. The three approved reform proposals are broadly similar to the proposal submitted by Chairman Kim last month.
The first proposal combines the single-member district system with regional and parallel proportional representation. It maintains the current single-member district system (one member per electoral district) and elects proportional representatives based on party vote share regardless of regional election results. The second proposal is a 'single-member district + regional semi-proportional representation system,' where if the party does not fill seats according to its vote share in the district, the proportional representatives compensate for the difference. Both the first and second proposals increase the number of proportional representatives by 50, raising the total number of seats to 350.
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