As the rival parties remained deadlocked over redrawing the electoral districts with two days remaining for the legal deadline, the nation’s election watchdog said Wednesday it would offer a grace period, allowing preliminary candidates to continue their campaigns for a while to minimize disruption.
It also pledged to step in and take the matter in its own hands, should political parties fail to reach an agreement during the extra period.
“We urge the National Assembly to fix the new constituencies by Jan. 8, which is the last day of the provisional parliamentary session,” the National Election Commission said in a statement Wednesday.
“Should this fail to happen, we will be forced to exercise our authority as the election supervisor and come up with an effective solution (without waiting for a bipartisan agreement).”
In 2014, the Constitutional Court ordered a revision of the election law, demanding that the population disparity between the largest and the smallest constituencies be reduced to 2-to-1 from 3-to-1.
The original legislative deadline was midnight, Dec. 31. In a struggle to meet this schedule, the leadership of the ruling Saenuri Party and the main opposition The Minjoo Party of Korea had met on Sunday for a dead-end negotiation but in vain.
Accordingly, the current constituency demarcation will lose legal effect, starting from Jan. 1. The NEC will also stop taking applications for candidate registration until a new electoral map is confirmed and effectuated.
Preliminary candidates who have made their registration by Wednesday, however, will be temporarily allowed to carry on with their campaigns, according to the commission.
The most plausible scenario is that Assembly Speaker Rep. Chung Ui-hwa will authorize his power and submit a compromise draft to the constituency committee.
Despite growing pressure from the ruling party and the presidential office, Chung has consistently refused to push ahead with the bill, urging for bipartisan agreement until the last minute.
Chung’s draft is likely to conform to the current system, allocating 246 seats to local constituencies and 54 to proportional representatives.
But there is still a chance that parties may reach a last-minute agreement on 253 regional seats and 47 proportional seats, in an effort to maximize the number of local candidates within the house.
Meanwhile, it is the preliminary candidates of the opposition camp who are expected to face additional difficulties as they must now apply the party’s new name in their campaign materials.
The main opposition party on Monday changed its title to the Minjoo Party of Korea, replacing New Politics Alliance for Democracy as part of a rebranding effort following scores of defections by key party members this month.
By Bae Hyun-jung ()
koreaherald@heraldcorp.com
