[Reporter’s Notebook] An Innovation Committee in Name Only... Will the Democratic Party Miss Its Last Chance for Reform?

Democratic Party Leadership Promises Full Authority to Kim Eun-kyung Innovation Committee
Fails to Renounce Immunity from Arrest, Creating a 'Nominal Innovation Committee'
Innovation Tailored to Leadership Preferences Cannot Bring Real Change

"I will entrust everything from the name to the role so that the innovation body can renew our party and politics."

This was said by Lee Jae-myung, leader of the Democratic Party of Korea, at the party's Supreme Council meeting on the 16th of last month. It meant that the ‘Kim Eun-kyung Innovation Committee’ would be given virtually full authority ahead of the crucial general election phase. However, more than 20 days after its launch, the Innovation Committee has yet to lead the party’s innovation. Only concerns such as ‘nominal Innovation Committee’ and ‘out of sync with party leadership’ are pouring out.

The reason political parties create innovation bodies is clear. It is to prepare a breakthrough to recover when public sentiment turns against them due to various controversies and mistakes. Especially, innovation committees launched before election seasons propose radical agendas such as nomination reforms. The 2015 ‘Kim Sang-gon Innovation Committee’ is a representative example. At that time, it created a system to evaluate incumbent lawmakers and proposed an innovation plan to exclude the bottom 20% from nominations.

While the content of innovation plans is important, the key is whether they actually bring about change within the party. Such change depends on the will of the leadership. For this reason, many past innovation committees have issued innovation plans and then disappeared into history. This was because the leadership at the time did not properly accept the innovation plans. Choi Jae-sung, who led the Party Development Committee in 2017, confessed after his term ended that "the innovation plans were damaged during the party’s approval process."

This Innovation Committee is the Democratic Party’s last chance for reform before the general election. That is, unless the reason for creating an innovation committee centered on outsiders was to let it quietly finish its term without touching the nomination issue. The agendas pointed out by the Innovation Committee on the 12th, such as immunity from arrest, tactical party switching, and vested interests, have been consistently identified as weaknesses of the Democratic Party. Delaying by the leadership is not always the best approach. If they cannot agree with the method, it is right to actively review and provide opinions.

One might argue, "It has been less than a month, so don’t be impatient." However, the Democratic Party has had several opportunities to change over the past year. Innovation that only suits the party’s taste cannot change anything.

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