Where Did Election Commission Reform Go?

Just after the June 3 local elections, South Korea’s ruling and opposition parties seemed ready to take apart and rebuild the National Election Commission. That momentum has since faded, raising the question of where the promised reform went.

The Democratic Party formed a task force after a ballot-paper shortage, saying, “If this is how it is, it would be better to abolish it.” The People Power Party also launched a special committee, arguing that the commission needed “major surgery at the level of dissolution.”

“

If this is how it is, it would be better to abolish it.

Apart from the Democratic Party’s call for a one-point constitutional amendment to reorganize the commission’s functions, which the People Power Party opposed, the two parties broadly agreed on the direction of reform. Both said the commission’s status as a constitutionally independent body had left it in a blind spot for external oversight.

The parties also blamed what they described as widespread moral hazard and a collapse of organizational discipline for the overall failures in election management. Lawmakers submitted 28 bills over roughly two and a half months, from mid-June through the end of the following month. Some reached the responsible National Assembly committee, the Public Administration and Security Committee, just two days apart. Yet the bills received no review.

“

Major surgery at the level of dissolution is needed.