National Assembly starts session to discuss electoral districting, contentious bills
Published: 19 Feb. 2024, 16:03
The February legislative session started in the afternoon.
With only 51 days left for the April 10 general elections, a revision bill of the Public Official Election Act to finalize electoral constituencies is scheduled to be voted on later this month. Some politically volatile bills, such as a special probe motion into the president's wife, are also expected to be deliberated and voted on.
The floor leaders of the two major parties will give addresses. Rep. Hong Ihk-pyo of the opposition Democratic Party (DP) will give the address on Tuesday, and his counterpart of the president's governing People Power Party, Yun Jae-ok, will take a turn on Wednesday.
Lawmakers will hold government hearings on some critical issues on Thursday and Friday. A voting session is scheduled for Feb. 29.
The lawmakers are scheduled to vote on a plan to finalize the electoral districts for the April 10 general elections during that session, which is taking place just 41 days before the election.
The special committee on political reform is tasked with devising a plan, but the two main parties are in a deadlock on adjusting the constituencies.
They had earlier agreed to keep the constituencies in Jongno and Jung districts of Seoul and Chuncheon of Gangwon while merging three districts in Nowon of Seoul into two constituencies. However, they failed to narrow down differences in other areas that need adjustments.
The PPP said it wants to respect the National Election Commission's proposal, which was submitted to the legislature in December. The DP, however, said the proposal is favorable to the PPP because its stronghold districts in Bucheon of Gyeonggi and North Jeolla will each lose one seat, while the PPP's stronghold of Gangnam, Seoul, will keep three seats.
The National Assembly has a history of delinquency in creating the constituency map, a critical piece for voters and candidates. Constituencies were finalized only 39 days before the general elections in 2020. The constituency map was finalized 42 days before the 2016 elections and 44 days before the 2012 race.
Critics say that the tardy creation of a constituency map benefits incumbent lawmakers against political rookies during the campaign.
The upcoming voting session is also expected to cover bills impacting the forthcoming elections. Speculation is high that the DP will reintroduce two motions to launch special probes, one of which involves allegations against President Yoon Suk Yeol's wife, Kim Keon Hee. Yoon had vetoed the two opposition-led proposals last month.
DP sources were careful about the prospect of reintroducing the bills. "We will decide after the general assembly of our lawmakers," a DP source said Monday.
Passage of a bill vetoed by the president requires two-thirds of incumbent lawmakers' votes. Currently, the National Assembly has 297 lawmakers, and the DP controls 163 and the PPP 113.
Despite a boycott of Yoon's People Power Party (PPP), the DP and its allies used their majority power in the National Assembly to pass the two independent counsel bills in December with 180 votes.
One probe is to appoint an independent counsel to investigate Kim's alleged involvement in manipulating stock prices of Deutsch Motors, a BMW car dealer in Korea, between 2009 and 2012. She has denied the allegations.
Another special probe seeks to investigate six prominent figures of the corruption-ridden development project in southern Gyeonggi, often referred to as the Daejang-dong scandal.
An independent counsel is to probe the allegations that they were promised 5 billion won ($3.75 million) each from an asset developer in return for their influence-peddling for the project, carried out when DP Chairman Lee Jae-myung was mayor of Seongnam.
The PPP has argued that the proposed investigation against Kim is the DP's political attempt to paint the Yoon administration negatively ahead of the April general election. It also said the probe plan into the Daejang-dong scandal is a diversion scheme to deflect attention from DP leader Lee while discrediting the ongoing investigation of the scandal by the prosecution.
Meanwhile, a recent opinion poll showed that Yoon's approval rating slightly increased from last week's.
According to the Realmeter poll, conducted from Tuesday to Friday, Yoon's approval rating was 39.5 percent, up by 0.3 percentage points. The increase was within the margin of error, plus or minus 2.2 percentage points. The poll has a confidence level of 95 percent.
Disapproval was 57.2 percent, 0.5 percentage points down from the previous week's poll.
The support rate for the PPP was 39.1 percent, and the DP was 40.2 percent in another poll by the Realmeter.
The poll, conducted Thursday and Friday, has a confidence level of 95 percent and a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. More poll details are available at the National Election Survey Deliberation Commission.
BY SER MYO-JA [enational@joongang.co.kr]
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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