Political parties are moving again to increase the number of lawmakers in the Assembly. The ruling Saenuri Party and the main opposition Democratic United Party, which have been bickering over redrawing electoral districts, have patched up their differences by increasing the number of seats from the current 299 to 300.
Rep. Joo Sung-young of the ruling party said on Sunday that the two parties have resolved the rezoning puzzle by embracing a proposal presented by the National Election Commission.
Earlier this month, the two parties had agreed to create three more electoral districts, one each in Sejong, Wonju and Paju cities. But they could not agree on which three districts to eliminate to maintain the current Assembly quota.
The DUP insisted on reducing two Assembly seats in the Gyeongsang provinces, the stronghold of the ruling party, and one in its heartland, the Jeolla provinces. The Saenuri Party wanted the opposite ― eliminating one district in its home turf and two in its rival’s.
To break the deadlock, the NEC proposed to reduce one seat in each region and add one more seat to the Assembly quota, on condition that the quota increase is only for this election.
The commission justified its intervention by saying that any further delay in setting the redistricting issue would cause serious problems in holding the April 11 election.
We understand the difficult situation facing the commission. It was supposed to draw up the lists of eligible voters in all parliamentary electoral districts two months before election day. But it has not yet finished the job due to the two parties’ failure to observe the negotiation deadline.
But the NEC’s proposal was misbegotten. We already have too many lawmakers. In Korea, a lawmaker represents 162,000 people on average, while the comparable ratios in the United States and Japan are 700,000 and 260,000, respectively.
The large number of parliamentary seats would not matter much if the National Assembly operated efficiently. But Korean lawmakers have degraded it into a high-cost, low-efficiency organization.
No political party would reject a proposal to increase the number of parliamentary seats. For self-serving politicians, the more the better. But for the nation, the opposite is true.
Readjusting electoral districts is a task that should not be left to lawmakers. Political parties should set up a committee consisting of outside experts and empower it to adjust the number of lawmakers to a proper level and redraw electoral districts based on that.
