Foul play takes savage toll on minor parties

Minor opposition Justice Party Chairwoman Rep. Sim Sang-jung sobs during a press conference at the National Assembly, Thursday, a day after the general election. The Justice Party won just six seats in the 300-seat Assembly, far fewer than the minimum 20 it had aimed for under a new electoral system intended to be "favorable to minor parties." Korea Times photo by Oh Dae-geun

New electoral system fails to boost underrepresented political parties

By Jung Da-min

This year's general election was conducted under a new electoral system intended to be "favorable to minor parties" in the proportional representation vote, but the election results showed that most of them failed to win any National Assembly seats.

According to the National Election Commission, Thursday, the "satellite parties" of the nation's two major parties combined took 36 proportional representation seats, about three quarters of the 47 total, while three other "real minor" parties won just 11.

The main opposition United Future Party's (UFP) satellite Future Korea Party (FKP) was given 19 seats with support of 33.84 percent, the most among the 35 parties that participated in the proportional representation race. The ruling Democratic Party of Korea's (DPK) satellite party, Civil Together, recorded the second-highest at 33.35 percent, winning 17 seats.

Last year, the ruling DPK partnered with four other minor parties to pass the new electoral system bill, originally aimed to make it easier for previously underrepresented smaller political parties to win a larger share of the proportional representation seats.

But then the UFP created the satellite FKP in early February to "win" proportional representation seats and later merge with it. To counter the move, the DPK ended up creating its own satellite party in early March, just a month ahead of the election.

Considering the DPK won 163 seats in the first-past-the-post voting for 253 single-member constituencies and the UFP garnered 84 seats, the country's two major parties will have more than 280 seats in the 300-seat National Assembly once they merge with their "paper parties."

Three "real" minor parties unrelated to the two major parties ― the Justice Party headed by Rep. Sim Sang-jung, the People's Party headed by doctor-turned-politician Ahn Cheol-soo, and the Open Minjoo Party headed by former DPK members Chung Bong-joo and Rep. Sohn Hye-won ― won five, three and three proportional representation seats, respectively, with support of 9.67 percent, 6.79 percent and 5.42 percent.

The remaining 30 parties, mostly newly created in the past few months due to the new electoral system, did not meet the minimum threshold of garnering at least 3 percent of the total vote to secure a proportional representation seat.

Justice Party Chairwoman Sim, who pushed for the electoral reform bill to increase the voice of minor parties, held a press conference at the Assembly, Thursday, and said she felt sorry that the party leadership failed to gain more seats.

"This general election left a stain in the history of the country's politics as two-party politics intensified with the collapse of electoral reform," Sim said. "I feel so sorry that the Justice Party only secured 2 percent of the 300-seat National Assembly when it garnered support of 10 percent. But we humbly accept the results as we abided with the principles of the electoral reform bill."

The Minsaeng Party, which had 20 incumbent lawmakers going into the election, had none of its candidates elected both in the constituency and the proportional representation votes. It is expected to be dissolved.

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