The South Korean National Assembly plans legislation to grant voting rights to some 2.8 million overseas Korean nationals, a governing party lawmaker said Tuesday.
The Assembly has been seeking to revise the election law to allow overseas Koreans to vote in presidential and general elections following a Constitutional Court ruling last year that denying such rights to residents outside the country is incompatible with South Korea's Constitution.
The top court said the law must be revised by the end of this year.
"In order to meet the deadline imposed by the court, the motion must be prepared during the current regular session," Yonhap News quoted Chang Yoon-seok, policy coordinator of the ruling Grand National Party, as saying. "Discussion is underway and the election commission is also working on the issue."
South Korea is among the few countries that do not grant suffrage to overseas nationals, who were stripped of such rights in 1972 by the then Park Chung-hee administration, which amended the election law to prolong the authoritarian regime.
There are about 6.6 million ethnic Koreans living abroad, of whom about 2.8 million retain Korean citizenship, according to government data.
Although rival parties generally agree on giving voting rights to overseas citizens, they have been at loggerheads over when to introduce the legislation. Some lawmakers question whether it is fair to grant suffrage to Korean nationals with permanent residence status in foreign countries who are exempt from taxation and military duties.
The country's election watchdog estimates that some 8.59 billion won ($8.5 million) will be needed for the change, assuming that some 1.03 million out of 2.8 million overseas Koreans are eligible voters and that 50 percent of them register as absentee voters.