Reducing Delegate Influence in Party Leader Election
Bottom 10% of Incumbent Lawmakers to Have 30% of Votes Deducted
The Democratic Party of Korea has decided to apply a 30% deduction rate to the bottom 10% in the evaluation process of elected public officials. The party also plans to revise the primary election rules to reduce the reflection ratio of delegates in the party leader election. In addition, it will strengthen the verification of slander and controversies related to candidates for next year's general election.
Lee Jae-myung, leader of the Democratic Party of Korea, is speaking at the Supreme Council meeting held at the National Assembly on the 22nd. Photo by Kim Hyun-min kimhyun81@
Kang Seon-woo, spokesperson for the Democratic Party, explained at a briefing after the Supreme Council meeting on the 24th, "The Supreme Council resolved to maintain the deduction target at 20% as before, but to increase the deduction rate to 30% for the bottom 10% in the evaluation of elected public officials for members of the National Assembly." He added, "Accordingly, among incumbent lawmakers, those ranked 0-10% in the evaluation will have 30% of their votes deducted, and those ranked 10-20% will have 20% of their votes deducted."
Earlier, the Democratic Party's General Election Planning Team had submitted this plan to the Supreme Council. The Supreme Council finalized the decision to strengthen penalties for low-ranking evaluators by accepting the proposal from the planning team. However, controversy is inevitable as the principle of finalizing the general election primary rules one year in advance has been compromised.
The rules will also be revised to reduce the influence of delegates in the party leader primary election.
Spokesperson Kang said, "Regarding the main primary regulations for electing the party leader through the Supreme Council, previously the valid votes of delegates accounted for 30%, party members with voting rights 40%, the public 25%, and general party members 5%. Now, the public and general party members will be combined as 'the public' with a total of 30%, and delegates and party members with voting rights will be reflected as 70%, with the ratio between delegates and party members with voting rights being less than 20 to 1." This matter requires an amendment to the party constitution, so it will be decided at the Party Affairs Committee meeting on the 27th and finalized at the Central Committee meeting on the 7th of next month.
Concerns arose within the Democratic Party that a single delegate could exert excessive influence at the party convention, especially after incidents such as the envelope bribery scandal at the party convention. For this reason, discussions were raised about abolishing the delegate system or reducing its influence. However, there were also concerns that abolishing the delegate system could increase the influence of hardline party members. Currently, it is known that the vote value ratio between delegates and party members with voting rights is about 60 to 1.
The Supreme Council also announced measures to strengthen candidate verification to suppress slander controversies. Han Byung-do, chairman of the Strategy Planning Committee and secretary of the Democratic Party's General Election Planning Team, said on the day, "We decided to request the Candidate Verification Committee to strengthen the verification of candidates with inappropriate language and behavior." Regarding this, Chairman Han explained, "The pledge form for applying for verification of public office election candidates will include a clause that candidates will not engage in slander, controversies, or inappropriate language and behavior that do not meet public ethics and the public's expectations." He added, "Even if candidates pass the qualification screening, the pledge will include that candidates must withdraw before the election day or resign from their parliamentary seat after being elected, according to the party's decision."
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