7 Assembly Seats Sought for Overseas Koreans
By Lee Tae-hoon
Staff Reporter
A lawmaker called for creating seven more parliamentary seats for Korean residents abroad, Friday.
Rep. Kim Sung-gon of the main opposition Democratic Party (DP) said seven proportional representation seats should be added to the current 299-member National Assembly to grant Korean nationals living abroad the right to represent themselves.
"Each lawmaker represents roughly 167,000 citizens," Kim said. "Wouldn't it be pertinent to make seven additional proportional seats for 1.22 million permanent residents abroad, who have thus far been excluded when counting Korea's population?"
Kim claimed that Korea should grant them the right to represent themselves, given that they already have suffrage.
However, Prime Minister Chung Un-chan expressed skepticism, saying excessive interest in the politics of the motherland may slow down settlement in the countries they have immigrated.
"The measure would make expatriates pay more attention to issues in Korea rather than to those in the country they live in," Chung said.
Yet, Chung agreed with Kim on the need to draw up legislation that would make it easier for Korean nationals living abroad to vote in the presidential and general elections, both slated for 2012.
"Even if I were in the United States, I would hesitate to travel to the polling stations to cast ballots," Chung said. "Korea should carefully review giving more options to Koreans abroad in casting ballots, including mail voting."
The prime minister said, if he had lived in Florida, where he stayed for his master's degree and has a Korean population of 35,000, he would have to travel some 1,000 kilometers to go to the nearest polling station, which is located in Atlanta, Georgia.
In February 2009, the Assembly approved a revision to let some 2.5 million Korean expatriates over the age of 19 pick the president, and lawmakers under the proportional representation system.
However, under the current system, only 166 diplomatic centers in 110 countries are recognized as polling stations, forcing many voters to travel several hours and some to cross borders to register and cast a ballot.
A 2009 survey by the Korea Academy for Political Science and Law shows that only 31.8 percent of respondents preferred visiting the polling stations.
The majority of them answered that they favored absentee voting, with 36.1 percent supporting online voting, followed by 28.6 percent with postal voting, according to the private think tank.
Meanwhile, Assembly Speaker Kim Hyong-o demanded lawmakers to keep their promise of granting suffrage to sailors.
"The Constitutional Court has already ruled that it is unconstitutional to strip suffrage from crewmen," the speaker said. "I urge both the ruling and opposition parties to pass a bill that would grant suffrage to 20,000 underrepresented taxpayers as promised last year."