Thread by @koreanforeigner

SKorean politics is a joke. Except that it's not funny. Although the coronavirus pandemic could roar back at any moment, both of the two major parties, the ruling Minjoo Party and the United Future Party are playing political games. 1/n

It's a long story. So I'll give as quick a run down of what happened as possible. The Minjoo Party wanted to reform the electoral system since February 2019. It wanted to introduce a mixed-member proportional representation system... 2/n

...in which parliamentary seats are tied to the percentage of voters' support for parties. I won't try to pretend that I understand it. Frankly, it confuses me. But if you're under lockdown, have time, and curious, here's the Wikipedia link.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed-mem…

3/n

The main opposition party didn't support it. In fact, the party's leader, Hwang Kyo-ahn went on a hunger strike. There was a filibuster. Things even got a little violent.

It would be weird for violence NOT to erupt in the National Assembly.

koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20…

4/n

Let's talk about the conservative main opposition party just a bit. Today, it's called the United Future Party (UFP). Just a few months ago, it was called the Liberty Korea Party (LKP). Before that, it was called the Saenuri Party for a few years.

5/n

It changed its name to the LKP because the name Saenuri couldn't be separated from the disgraced, impeached, and imprisoned President Park Geun-hye. Then it changed its name from the LKP to the UFP in February 2020 after the LKP and a bunch of smaller parties merged.

6/n

The LKP wasn't gaining support from voters. Hence the merger. After the merger and rebranding itself as the UFP, it gained more support, but still not enough to overtake the Minjoo Party.

SKorea's conservatives are deeply disliked and distrusted by many voters.

7/n

The Minjoo Party has not been without controversy. From the Cho Guk scandal to the failure of detente with NKorea and mutiple mishandling of the economy, the Minjoo Party has had its fair share of hits. But President Moon himself remains well liked.

8/n

Back to electoral reform. Despite the conservatives' opposition, the Minjoo Party, along with votes from other minor parties, pushed through with passing legislation to reform the electoral system.

9/n

So how did it affect the National Assembly? The National Assembly is a unicameral legislature composed of 300 members. Of the 300 members, 253 are directly elected seats and 47 are proportional representation slots.

The Minjoo Party wanted to expand the numbers but failed.

10/n

But what the bill managed to do was to change the method of distributing proportional representation (PR) seats "to better reflect the vote share and boost the presence of minor parties."

11/n

To be specific, 30 of the 47 PR seats will be decided under a mixed-member proportional (MMP) system, which allocates PR seats so as to compensate for any inequity produced by the district seat results.

12/n

To be specific, 30 of the 47 PR seats will be decided under a mixed-member proportional (MMP) system, which allocates PR seats so as to compensate for any inequity produced by the district seat results.

Again, I'm not going to pretend I understand what that means.

13/n

The conservatives naturally hated this idea. It meant that they would lose seats. It also meant that the ruling Minjoo Party would lose seats, but the Minjoo Party figured that it could live with the results if it meant that the conservatives would lose more.

14/n

The electoral reform bill, along with others, were rammed through the National Assembly without conservative support. So the way the LKP saw it, the Minjoo Party played dirty.

So their response was basically, "Two can play that game."

15/n

In fact, they spelled out exactly how dirty they were going to play the game.

The LKP said that it would set up a one-off "satellite" party to form two political entities. One would field only constituency candidates and the other only PR candidates.

16/n

Theoretically, this conservative "bloc" could secure more seats under the new system. To explain, even though they might get fewer votes, the system would reward the PR candidates. After the elections are over, they would re-merge and form a majority party.

17/n

This is a clear manipulation of the new electoral system. And the LKP knew it and ADMITTED it! They didn't even try to hide it. The LKP said it would clearly show how "unconstitutional and uncivilized" the new electoral system is.

How magnanimous of them!

18/n

And that's exactly what the LKP did. Days before the LKP rebranded itself as the UFP, it created a satellite party - the Future Korea Party (FKP) - in order to secure additional PR seats in the next parliamentary election. LKP lawmakers quit the party to "found" the FKP.

19/n

It's a dirty, dirty trick, but it's perfectly legal. Despite consistently having less support than the Minjoo Party, through the electoral reform that the Minjoo Party pushed through, at least in theory, the UFP could pull the right from under the Minjoo Party.

20/n

Basically, the Minjoo Party's initial response to the LKP/UFP/FKP's move can be best summed up with this gif.

21/n

Naturally, the Minjoo Party got pretty upset. The Minjoo Party denounced the move and accused the UFP/FKP hybird of being a "trash party" and even filed a criminal complaint with the prosecution.

To be frank, the Minjoo Party is right to be worried.

22/n

If the UFP/FKP becomes the majority party, it will (1) definitely turn President Moon into a lame duck president, (2) definitely reverse, undo, and block almost every single progressive agenda (which will have good and bad results), and (3) maybe impeach President Moon.

23/n

When the Minjoo Party pushed for electoral reform, it wasn't able to do it alone. It needed other minor parties to vote for it. They were happy to vote with the Minjoo Party because it meant that they could win more seats in the National Assembly.

24/n

But after the UFP did what it did, the Minjoo Party started to sing a different tune. After calling the UFP/FKP a trash party, the Minjoo Party decided to fight fire with fire and announced it would establish a coalition party of its own to counter the UFP/FKP.

25/n

So the Minjoo Party reached out to the minor parties that helped it the first time round. Except this time, they weren't on board. The initial deal that the Minjoo Party made with them was to give them more seats in the National Assmebly in exchange for their votes.

26/n

There were already disagreements between the Minjoo Party and the other minor parties because of sharp disagreements between the parties over who and how many candidates from which parties were to be nominated for the PR seats.

27/n

In fact, the Justice Party declared it would not join the Minjoo Party's coalition. Other smaller parties were not as forward as the Justice Party, but they remain "unsure."

There are 24 days left before the election. The Minjoo Party can't afford to wait.

28/n

So the Minjoo Party went ahead and created a coalition with a bunch of new ad-hoc parties. No one knows what these new parties' platforms are. It's a coalition that was created for the sake of creating a coalition.

29/n

But does this mean that the UFP/FKP is a disciplined, lean, mean fighting machine? Not by a long shot.

Just three days ago, the FKP's chairman, Han Sun-kyo, and other leaders resigned because of disagreements with the UFP over the selection of candidates for PR seats.

30/n

Among the 20 candidates thought likely to be elected to PR seats, the UFP picked only one person from the FKP. The rest were assigned to UFP lawmakers. Han accused the UFP of preventing him and his cohorts from gaining seats and called the UFP corrupt.

31/n

Following Han’s resignation, UFP Representative Won Yoo-chul left the UFP and became the new FKP chairman.

The UFP's handling of the situation can be best summed up with this gif.

32/n

Electoral reform was meant to give minor parties a bigger voice; to make the National Assembly a more plural place so that it would be more representative of voters. But in reality, it appears that it will only lessen the role minor parties get to play.

33/n

Due to the coronavirus, the coming worldwide economic recession (hopefully not depression), alliance mismanagement by SKorea and the US, and continued belligerence from NKorea, SKorea faces the biggest crises since the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis.

34/n

But in the midst of all this, instead of working toward solutions to the crises that SKorea faces, both the UFP/FKP and the Minjoo Party are playing political games.

Electoral reform, which was supposed to deliver greater representation, turned out to be an unfunny joke.

35/n

After living my entire life an overseas Korean in Brunei and the US, I came to Korea in 2011. The fist time I was able to exercise my right to vote was in 2012. I refused to vote in every election since because there wasn't any politician or party I found worth voting for.

36/n

As though my desire to practise social distancing wasn't strong enough during this pandemic, I am yet again going to spend election day, April 15, at home.

At least there are shows on Netflx that are actually funny.

END

Addendum: Yet another example showing how much of a joke SKorean politics and politicians are.

mengnews.joins.com/amparticle/307…