Parties Mushroom before General Elections

With only a month to go before the 16th general elections slated for March 14, 2000, the lawmakers who failed to grab the party nomination tickets established a new party named the Democratic People’s Party.

Although the new party included not a few senior members and influential lawmakers including Kim Yun-hwan, Shin Sang-woo and Lee Ki-taek, the election results were miserable as it just won one district seat and one representative seat. After the elections ended, the party actually became a “paper party” and, according to the party law, its registration was automatically effaced after the 17th general elections.

Every four years, when the general elections come to an end, the election watchdog busies itself with dealing with the political parties, which have in reality become obsolete.

In other words, according to Article 44 of the Political Party Law, the election watchdog crosses off the names of the parties, if they failed to grab a seat or failed to earn more than 2 percent of the validate total number of votes, or failed to produce candidates in the parliamentary or local elections for four years. The measures were designed to prevent the parties from mushrooming.

Aside from the Democratic People’s Party, right after the 17th general elections in 2004, some 11 parties became history including the Youth Progressive Party, the Democratic Republican Party, the Elderly Citizens’ Rights Protection Party, the Democratic Light Party, the Korean Union Commonwealth, the Green Societal Democratic Party, the Hope 2080 and the Korean Christian Party.

Among them, the Green Societal Democratic Party, the Hope 2080 and the Korean Christian Party were created in March 2004, just a month before the elections. For the similar reasons, three other parties were erased from the list of parties in April 14, 2000, right after the 16th general elections.

Why do political parties spring up right before the elections and disappear after them?

Professor Kim Yong-ho at Inha University said, “This happens because the parties see themselves as a mere tool to come to power, not based on ideologies or principles.”

Therefore, it is likely to find a number of unfamiliar party names in the upcoming elections. Many new parties are preparing to launch, or already launched, their political organizations such as the Emperor of the Heavens Party, the New Village Community Party, the Culture and Art Party and the Economy and Unification Party, before the April 9 elections.

The National Election Commission expected that if all the 18 parties which have submitted their applications actually form their organizations, the general elections will have contestants from more than 40 political parties this year.

Some parties do not even hesitate to use anomalies such as taking over an existing party and changing the name and party identity, if they run out of time to prepare the creation of a new party. This is akin to “back door listing” in the stock market. “Pro-Park Alliance” also changed the party name from the “Real Owner Union,” which was led by Chung Geun-mo, former Minister of Science and Technology, to the “Future Korea Party.”

Professor Kang Won-taek at Soongsil University said, “The repeat of the history in which parties create their organizations to survive in the political circle or to make a specific person president, without giving much thought about party principles, ideology and policies, is nothing but a showcase of limitations our political reality faces today.”

leon@donga.com