National Assembly Voting Performance Holds Key to Political Reform: April 10 General Election Analysis

A group is holding a voting performance in front of the National Assembly at the end of last year./News 1

During the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, 2,977 people lost their lives. Among them, 412 were firefighters and emergency responders. The casualties were people who worked at the 412-meter-tall, 110-story World Trade Center building, which collapsed as a pillar of fire rose. Firefighters and rescue workers rushed to the scene after receiving the summons order. They died while climbing the stairs against the flow of people, guiding and rescuing those escaping. Among the firefighter casualties were many commanders, including the 72 fire chief. Father Michel Judge, a 68-year-old fire department priest, also died in the inferno.

In any country, when a sudden disaster occurs, an emergency call is made. Although the numbers are different in each country, such as 119 in Korea, 911 in the United States and Canada, and 000 in Australia, citizens believe that when the phone rings, someone will definitely come running to save them. The tighter the network of trust that supports society, the more stable the society. Politics, especially the National Assembly, should be like a 119 call to the people.

April 10th is the day to elect members of the National Assembly. All kinds of people are running desperately for 300 seats. Regardless of which party they support, less than 1% of voters think that the current National Assembly has been efficient in carrying out the urgent tasks for the country and the people. Among such lawmakers, there is not a single one who was not elected by voters.

Will things change after the general election? There are constitutional and institutional factors that have pushed Korean politics into its current state of despair. The American presidential system was not created to efficiently pool power and solve national problems. It is a system that emphasizes the need to disperse power to prevent dictatorship by the majority. The reason why this flawed system worked so well during America’s heyday was because the loopholes in the system were filled with politicians’ knowledge. As the political style disappears, America’s global leadership, domestic political stability, and national unity are shaken at the same time.

Will Korea be able to supplement its politics with sense and conscience through the April 10 elections? It is difficult to expect a different result when the flaws in the system are still neglected and the public’s perspective in electing members of the National Assembly remains the same. The separation of powers in a presidential system means that the presidential power, centered on executive power, and the congressional power, centered on legislative power, must reach a reasonable conclusion on how to run the country through a process of negotiation and compromise. The Korean presidential system has degenerated into a system that frustrates the people by exercising power ‘as the president pleases’ and ‘as the majority party pleases.’

In order for the country and the people not to be suffocated under these constraints of the Constitution and power structure, ‘minimum oxygen’ must be supplied to the National Assembly through the April 10 general elections. The standard of measurement is whether Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung is politically alive or dead. If CEO Lee survives, there is no hope for the time being.

The leader of the party with the absolute majority in the National Assembly is the dual axis of the president and the nation’s representative firefighter. The first requirement for a good firefighter is ‘responsibility’. ‘Responsibility’ and ‘guilt’ are two sides of a coin. At the scene of the fire, ‘If I had acted differently, at least one more person’s life could have been saved…’ ‘ ‘If I had done better, my colleagues wouldn’t have been sacrificed… ‘ appears as regret. This corrects past mistakes and prevents repeating failures.

Representative Lee has never once expressed ‘guilt’ even though many of his colleagues took their own lives for crimes he was implicated in. It means there is no sense of guilt. Even though he spends more time in and out of court as a defendant than working as the representative of the main opposition party, he does not even feel guilty. This is a terrible thing that is on a different level from immorality.

His ‘level of responsibility’ and ‘whether he feels guilty’ are not limited to individual matters. If the current administration loses the trust of the people, the ethical awareness of the entire main opposition party, which is supposed to take over the next administration, has been completely destroyed. The Democratic Party’s nomination process and results show that. CEO Lee Jae-myung has brought down the entire ethical awareness of society to ‘Lee Jae-myung’s level.’

Lee Jae-myeong’s ink has stained not only the opposition party but also the ruling party. The attitude of the ruling party, which has done nothing well, to be chosen by the people through back-and-forth nominations, the ‘Let’s bury our side’s mistakes campaign’ brought up by some in society, and the case of a president who changed the meaning of the word ‘unfortunate’ to ‘apologize’, also said, ‘That’s it.’ Lee Jae-myung is also holding on… ‘It’s hard to come out without a backrest. The April 10 general election is an election that will ask politician Lee Jae-myung whether he has a sense of responsibility and ethics as Korea’s best firefighter.

2024-02-23 18:13:22
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