Sim Sang-jung Proposes 'Satellite Party Prevention Act'... Legalizing Separate Ballots for Constituency and Proportional Representation

"To Prevent the Reemergence of Satellite Parties"
Ruling and Opposition Parties Urged to Propose Electoral Reform Within This Month

Sim Sang-jung, a lawmaker from the Justice Party, has proposed the so-called 'Satellite Party Prevention Act' to prevent the emergence of satellite parties ahead of next year's general election. The purpose is to avoid repeating the controversy over 'trick parties' that occurred in the last general election. She also urged the two major parties to come up with election system reform plans within this month.

On the 10th, Sim held a press conference at the National Assembly and stated, "Today, I am introducing a bill to amend the Political Relations Act to prevent the reappearance of satellite party formations by the two major parties that ridiculed politics in the 21st general election."

She explained, "In 2020, the 'Public Official Election Act' was amended to introduce a semi-proportional representation system that improves the allocation method of proportional representation seats so that the number of seats a party holds in the National Assembly can be linked to the proportion of votes it receives in the proportional representation election," adding, "The purpose of the election law amendment was to resolve the discrepancy between the party vote ratio and seat occupancy rate so that minority parties could secure seats proportional to their public support."

She continued, "However, the two major parties undermined the purpose of the election system reform, which aimed to improve proportionality, by creating satellite parties to secure proportional representation seats," and criticized, "In this process, the two major parties even resorted to 'tricks' such as having their affiliated lawmakers leave or be expelled from their parties and 'defect' to the satellite parties to ensure that the satellite parties would appear earlier on the ballot paper."

[Image source=Yonhap News]

The amendment distinguishes the ballot papers into 'candidate ballot papers' (for district constituency elections) and 'party ballot papers' (for proportional representation elections), and requires that the symbols and party names of parties that do not nominate candidates in the proportional representation election be displayed on the ballot paper. The intention is to clearly differentiate from so-called 'satellite parties.'

Additionally, for parties that do not nominate candidates in either the district constituency or proportional representation elections, a unified symbol will not be assigned nationwide. In the case of National Assembly elections due to term expiration, election subsidies will be distributed and paid only to parties that nominate five or more candidates in both district constituency and proportional representation elections.

However, Sim acknowledged, "I am aware that the Satellite Party Prevention Act I am proposing today cannot completely block satellite parties," adding, "It is a matter of the two major parties, which have a history of forming satellite parties, reflecting on themselves and deciding not to rely on tricks and loopholes anymore, rather than relying solely on the law."

She then urged the two major parties to reform the election system. Sim said, "I hope that within this month, they will present election system reform plans that strengthen proportionality and representation and realize the era's political task of multi-party democracy," and added, "In parallel, I propose that the National Assembly's Special Committee on Political Reform conduct discussions to prevent the recurrence of the satellite party incident."

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