Set record for longest ballot in history 22nd National Assembly Election Proportional Representation Ballot Paper. It measures a whopping 51.7cm and has the symbols and names of 38 political parties written on it. What is noticeable is that the symbol written at the top of the ballot paper is ‘3’, not ‘1’. This is because the Democratic Party of Korea and the People Power Party, which were assigned symbols 1 and 2, did not submit candidates for proportional representation. Instead, each of these satellite political partyWe created the People’s Future with the Democratic Alliance and received symbols 3 and 4.
Changes in the proportional representation system
In order to understand why satellite political parties appeared, proportional representation systemWe need to start by looking at the changes that have occurred. ‘Semi-mixed proportional representation system’This is because satellite political parties have appeared in our country since the 21st National Assembly election in 2020, when was introduced.
A total of 300 members of the National Assembly are elected in the general election. Of these, 253 are constituency members of the National Assembly and 47 are proportional representation members. It can be said that a local district election is about electing a ‘person’ who will represent the area where you live, and a proportional representation election is about electing a ‘political party’ that you want to give power to. Starting with the 2020 general election, the latter’s proportional representation election method, that is, the method of distributing the 47 seats in the National Assembly, has changed. Here’s a before and after comparison:
BEFORE – Parallel proportional representation system: 47 proportional representation seats are allocated to each party according to the proportional representation election vote percentage. If a party receives 30% of the votes, 14 seats, or 30% of the 47 seats, are given to this party.
AFTER – Semi-linked proportional representation system: First, all 300 seats in the National Assembly are distributed to each political party according to the proportional representation election vote percentage. The number of elected seats in the district is subtracted from the allocated seats, and then half of that number is filled with the proportional representation of the party. The number of proportional representation members of each party elected through this system can be expressed as a formula: {300 (total number of seats) If there is a party that produces 80 elected representatives in the district election and records 30% of the vote in the proportional representation election, here (300 Remaining or excess seats resulting from the calculation are distributed according to a separately established formula.
With the introduction of the semi-linked proportional representation system, theoretically, the more seats a district holds, the fewer proportional representation seats there are.
Emergence of satellite political parties
© Daegu Dong-gu Election Commission/National Election Commission Library
From the voter’s perspective, the semi-mixed proportional representation system is difficult and complicated. Nevertheless, the reason for introducing this system is that it makes it difficult to be elected as a member of the National Assembly in a local district. It is advantageous for minority parties to enter the National Assembly.Because it does. The idea was to allow more diverse voices to enter the National Assembly. However, on the other hand, it is a system that is disadvantageous for the two major parties of symbols 1 and 2. So the small political party they created for proportional representation elections satellite political partyThis can be seen as:
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