Special Committee on Political Reform Approves Public Official Election Act Amendment to Increase Incheon Basic Council Seats

Emergency Amendment Prepared Through Bipartisan Secretary Negotiations

"Spirit of the Constituency Delimitation Committee Undermined"—Daegu Metropolitan Council Also Under Scrutiny

The National Assembly’s Special Committee on Political Reform (hereafter, the Special Committee) on April 28 passed an amendment to the Public Official Election Act that increases the number of basic council members in the Incheon Metropolitan Council by three. As a result, the number of basic council members for Incheon Metropolitan City Council will be expanded to 128.

The Special Committee convened a plenary session on the same day to approve the amendment to the Public Official Election Act. This revision was prepared urgently through consultations between ruling and opposition party secretaries after it became clear that following the Public Official Election Act, which passed the National Assembly plenary session on April 18, would create an issue with the allocation of basic council seats in the Incheon region.

Yonhap News Agency

Yoon Kunyoung, Assemblyman from the Democratic Party of Korea and secretary of the Special Committee, said, "Incheon City’s administrative district system will be reorganized as of July 1, and a new autonomous district named Yeongjong-gu will be established. In the process of guaranteeing the seven basic council seats for the new district, we failed to consider certain details carefully," he stated. "After discussions among the floor leaders of both parties and the secretaries of the Special Committee, we decided to increase the number of basic council members for Incheon by three compared to before." He further explained, "Since we were all focused on regions with declining populations, we overlooked the fact that Incheon is the only metropolitan area where the population is increasing and the number of basic local governments is growing."

Seo Iljun, Assemblyman from the People Power Party and secretary of the Special Committee, explained, "In the process of securing the minimum number of seats for the newly established Yeongjong-gu in the constituency delimitation committee, one seat each had to be reduced from self-governing districts with smaller populations, which led to this issue."

Meanwhile, during the Special Committee’s discussions, the issue was raised that the Daegu Metropolitan Council did not comply with the amendment’s supplementary opinion, which calls for maximum respect for the city and provincial council constituency delimitation plans. Assemblywoman Lim Miae of the Democratic Party cited the case of Daegu, saying, "There were four two-member constituencies proposed for basic councils, but the city council increased this to 18," adding, "The spirit of the Special Committee has been undermined." She argued that legislative action is needed to prevent local governments from arbitrarily delineating constituencies in the future. Assemblyman Yoon also pointed out regarding this matter that "the National Election Commission should state its position."

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