[Editorial] Ending the monopoly of two major parties

The next parliamentary elections are exactly one year away. The general elections to be held on April 10, 2024 carry great significance as they constitute a mid-term evaluation of the conservative Yoon Suk Yeol administration and determine the power balance heavily tilted to the Democratic Party (DP) holding 169 seats in the 300-member legislature. As a result, the majority party and President Yoon Suk Yeol’s People Power Party (PPP) will do their utmost to win the election. Given the past trajectory of the two major parties, they will most likely continue fighting over any issues until the election next April.

Buoyed by its majority in the National Assembly, the DP repeatedly flexed its muscles, as seen in its railroading through of a revision to the Grain Management Act. The DP has threatened to directly submit to a full voting the revisions aimed at getting votes from nurses and labor unions. Following the presidential veto of the revision to the grain act, the DP is bent on finding ways to get around the veto. Such alarming developments demand voters change the structure of the collision-prone legislature through their votes.

A critical lack of dialogue and compromise in the legislature owes much to the aged monopoly of the two major parties. Our current single-member district system helps consolidate the winner-take-all structure, demonize the other party and force them to care about their support base only. To help fresh faces enter politics, a novel proportional representation system was introduced three years ago, but the two parties competitively created their satellite parties.

Most urgent is to change our electoral system. From Monday, 100 lawmakers representing the two parties start discussing how to reform the dual-party system after a special committee on political reform presented three options, including changing the current single-member district system to a new one electing three to five legislators per district in large cities. Legislators must find effective ways to block large parties from taking more seats than their voter turnouts and help diverse parties enter the National Assembly to minimize the deepening polarization of our politics.

If the two parties abandon their narrow-mindedness, they can reach consensus. Members of the special committee for political reform said they agreed to raise the representation, improve the deep-seated regionalism, and strengthen our political diversity. But the two parties are still busy making shady deals with each other. After the PPP accepted the DP’s proposal for relocation of a military airport in Gwangju, South Jeolla, the DP supported the PPP’s plan to build a new airport in North Gyeogsang.