Minsaengdang, Launch of Election Committee and Public Office Committee 'Fails Again'... Factional Struggle for Power

Party Approval Rating Falls to the 1% Range

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Chun-han] The launch of the Minsaeng Party’s Election Countermeasures Committee (Election Committee) and Nomination Management Committee (Nomination Committee) has once again failed. This is due to unresolved disagreements among the party leadership regarding the composition of the Nomination Committee and the regulations for proportional representation nominations. Even as the party’s approval rating has plummeted to the 1% range, factional “turf wars” continue unabated.

Kim Jeong-hwa, co-representative, told reporters after the Supreme Council meeting on the 13th, “There were aspects where we could not handle major agenda items today,” adding, “Since we could not narrow the differences (among the party leadership), we decided to hold another meeting on Sunday afternoon.”

The Minsaeng Party’s general election planning team proposed forming the Nomination Committee with a total of nine members (six internal members and three external members). The internal members would be recommended by the former Bareunmirae Party, Alternative New Party, and Democratic Peace Party, with two members each. The external members would include the Nomination Committee Chairperson and two members recommended by the Chairperson. Regarding this proposal, the Alternative New Party and Democratic Peace Party factions protested that if the Nomination Committee Chairperson is taken by the Bareunmirae Party faction, it would effectively mean five members are from the Bareunmirae Party. The Alternative New Party and Democratic Peace Party factions suggested that the two members recommended by the Chairperson be counted as the two external members, but the Bareunmirae Party faction rejected this.

The regulations for proportional representation nominations are also a point of contention. In particular, the clause banning incumbent lawmakers from being re-nominated as proportional representatives has caused strong clashes between the Bareunmirae Party faction and the Democratic Peace Party faction. The Bareunmirae Party faction argues for including in the party rules that “proportional representation candidates must be political newcomers and incumbent lawmakers cannot be elected” to dispel criticism that some lawmakers are only eyeing proportional representation. The Democratic Peace Party faction is strongly opposing this.

While the Minsaeng Party is embroiled in factional disputes, its approval rating has collapsed. If this continues, the Minsaeng Party may fail to surpass 3% in the general election and could end up with zero proportional representation seats. According to a survey conducted by Realmeter commissioned by tbs from the 9th to the 11th, targeting 1,507 voters nationwide aged 18 and over (response rate 4.6%, margin of error ±2.5 percentage points at a 95% confidence level), the Minsaeng Party’s approval rating was recorded at 1.9%, down 2.2 percentage points from the previous week. This is lower than the People’s Party (4.6%), Justice Party (4.1%), and even the Gonghwa Party (2.6%). For more details, refer to the Central Election Poll Deliberation Commission website.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.