The failure of a panel commissioned to redraw parliamentary constituencies to fulfill its mission mirrors the many ills of Korean politics.
Most of all, it means we still don’t know -- only sixth months before the next parliamentary elections -- how the boundaries of each of the constituencies will be drawn. We had seen such a problem frequently in the past.
More seriously, it is unlikely that political parties will be able to reach an agreement by the Nov. 13 legal deadline, exactly five months prior to the polling day. The escalating partisan standoff over the government’s push for publishing state-authored Korean history books dims prospects for an early compromise for the redistricting.
The panel, commissioned by the National Election Commission, was formed in May in line with the Constitutional Court ruling that the maximum population deviation between the most and least populous constituencies should be reduced to 2-1 from the current 3-1.
The biggest problem with the panel was that all but one -- the chairman who came from the NEC -- of the nine members were named under the recommendation of the ruling and main opposition parties. In other words, all the civilian members were evenly split along the party lines.
One of the members had run in past elections and another served as a member of the candidate nomination committee. It is no wonder the constituency panel turned out to be a stage for a proxy war between the ruling and opposition parties. Worse yet, the panel needed a “yes” vote from two-thirds of its members for a decision, which made it impossible to reach an agreement.
As things stand, the ruling Saenuri Party wants to keep the number of lawmakers at the current 300 and reduce the number of proportional representation seats to make the way for an increase of the number of lawmakers to be elected from constituencies.
On its part, the New Politics Alliance for Democracy insists that there should be no change in the 54 seats given to the proportional representation scheme. Obviously, the rival parties’ positions are based on their political calculations for the next elections. Given the wide gap, the two parties should start talks quickly to meet the Nov. 13 deadline.
