Will the Election Commission Act as Referee in the Noisy ShinHyup Election?

Assemblyman Seo Byung-su Proposes 'Partial Amendment to the Credit Union Act'
Main Point: Mandatory Election Commission Delegation for Executive Elections

[Asia Economy Reporter Song Seung-seop] There is growing support for the election management committee to directly oversee the election process for the chairperson and central president of credit cooperatives. The rationale is that the participation of a professional and neutral election body is necessary to quell excessive competition and fairness controversies that have arisen during the election process.

According to industry sources on the 9th, Seo Byung-soo, a member of the National Assembly's Planning and Finance Committee from the People Power Party, recently proposed the "Partial Amendment to the Credit Cooperatives Act." The bill mandates that the management of elections for the chairperson and central president of credit cooperatives be entrusted to the election management committee. The chairperson elections are to be entrusted to the district/city/county election committees, while the central president elections are to be entrusted to the central election committee.

Under current law, elections for agricultural cooperatives, fisheries cooperatives, and forestry cooperatives are subject to "mandatory entrustment." When electing cooperative heads and central presidents, election management must be entrusted to the election committee. In contrast, credit cooperatives fall under "optional entrustment," meaning they are not required to entrust election affairs. Some credit cooperatives have conducted elections by appointing some of their own members as election officials.

There have been criticisms that credit cooperatives are subject to different regulations compared to other mutual finance sectors and that the discretionary nature of entrusting election affairs raises issues regarding fairness and reliability. In particular, there have been cases where the competition during elections became overheated, resulting in disorderly elections.

Last year, at credit cooperative A in Daejeon, a controversy over a "pre-election" arose during the chairperson election process. This occurred when text messages labeled "election campaign information" were sent to members before the announced candidate registration period had ended. Pre-election campaigning is strictly prohibited under the Public Official Election Act. In 2018, at credit cooperative B in Gyeongnam, there was a claim that the cooperative did not provide the voter list, making it impossible to know who was campaigning.

The movement to legislate the election process gained momentum after a June ruling last year declared that stipulating election campaign methods in the bylaws for executive elections was unconstitutional. At that time, the Constitutional Court ruled that although the Credit Cooperatives Act includes criminal penalties, regulating election campaign methods in the bylaws violated the principle of legality.

In response, the Financial Services Commission announced the "Amendment to the Enforcement Rules of the Credit Cooperatives Act" at the end of last month, detailing the methods of election campaigning for credit cooperatives. The amendment specifies the concrete methods and timing for the five types of election campaigning under the Credit Cooperatives Act: campaign posters, election bulletins, speeches and debates, appeals via telephone and computer, and appeals and business card distribution in public places.

Assemblyman Seo Byung-soo explained, "The current law grants discretion over whether to entrust election affairs, leading to concerns about insufficient assurance of election fairness. This bill aims to prevent election overheating and secure the fairness and reliability of elections."

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