Jun Ji-hye, a reporter at the finance desk of The Korea Times, focuses primarily on economic policy and government agencies, mainly covering the Ministry of Finance and Economy, the Ministry of Budget and Planning, the National Tax Service and the Korea Customs Service. She previously covered financial authorities, including the Financial Services Commission and the Financial Supervisory Service, and earlier worked on the political, city and business desks, reporting on a wide range of issues.
Saenuri hit over nomination stance
Members of the Citizens’ Coalition for Economic Justice hold a rally urging the ruling Saenuri Party to fulfill its campaign pledge to scrap party designations of candidates to run in municipal elections in front of the ruling party’s headquarters in Yeouido, Seoul, Wednesday. / Yonhap
By Jun Ji-hye
Designation of candidates for local elections unlikely to be scrapped
By Jun Ji-hye
The ruling Saenuri Party is failing to deliver on a campaign pledge to abolish the practice of political parties selecting candidates for municipal elections ahead of the June 4 local polls.
Rep. Kim Hack-yong said at a press briefing Wednesday, 13 of 19 participants in a policy-setting meeting argued that the current system should be maintained, while four members said the party should fulfill its campaign promise.
Two lawmakers did not express their views, he said.
Opposition lawmakers lashed out at the governing side for reneging on the campaign promise.
Rep. Kim Han-gil, chairman of the main opposition Democratic Party (DP), and independent lawmaker Ahn Cheol-soo plan to hold a one-on-one meeting Friday to come up with effective countermeasures against the governing party’s latest move.
Scrapping the top-down nomination system blamed for causing political corruption was an election pledge of then ruling party candidate President Park Geun-hye in the 2012 presidential poll.
Ahead of the meeting, the governing party initially planned to set the maintenance of the current nomination system as its official party platform.
After the meeting, however, Kim said that the party would hand over the issue to a parliamentary special committee for further discussion. Ruling party members of the committee are expected to push for maintaining the system as that is what their leaders are calling for.
“The proposal to abolish the party nomination system has a number of unconstitutional elements, and could cause unexpected side effects,” said Rep. Choi Kyung-hwan, floor leader of the Saenuri Party. “We need to think about if it is right to push for such a problematic measure simply because it was an election pledge.”
The ruling party has cited possible violations of candidates’ right to freedom of political expression and the public’s right to know as “unconstitutional” factors in the measure to scrap the party nomination system.
The governing side cited a Constitutional Court’s decision in 2003, which ruled that it is unconstitutional to ban candidates from advocating parties they belong to.
However, questions then arose over why the largest party in the nation suggested such an unreliable measure as one of its key campaign pledges.
The DP argued that the governing side is attempting to break its campaign pledge for its own political profit. Rep. Ahn joined criticism of the Saenuri Party, saying “the reason for the existence of a political party is not just to win elections.”
Some constitutional scholars also weighed in.
Lee Ki-woo, a law professor at Inha University, said that the Constitutional Court’s 2003 decision was clear and was being misrepresented.
“Scrapping the nomination system is not unconstitutional. Rather, the governing party’s attempt to cite the court decision as an objective argument against the proposal can be said to be unconstitutional,” said Lee at a joint press conference arranged by Rep. Hwang Ju-hong of the DP, Tuesday.
Oh Dong-seok, a law professor at Ajou University, claimed, “The governing side should not distort the decision of the Constitutional Court. Whether to abolish the nomination system is not connected to freedom of political expression.”