Separation of President and Ruling Party Before General Elections

President-elect Roh Moo-hyun has suggested a two-phase plan to reduce the president’s power around general elections in April next year.

Before the general elections on the principle of separating the ruling party and the government, the president will not control the party, which is the point of the first phase of the plan. After the elections, the right to appoint prime minister will be given to a party that controls the majority of the Assembly seats. His idea is to change the current strong president system into a responsible prime minister system, in which a majority party will appoint prime minister. Mr. Roh’s vision for political reform after the elections is similar to the French political system, in which the president and the prime minister from a majority party share power.

At a meeting of the Millennium Democratic Party (MDP)’s election preparation committee held after the December presidential election, the President-elect raised the need for the overcoming of a clear political divide by region. During a recent televised panel interview, he stressed that a device should be prepared to prevent a certain party from getting 70-80 percent of parliamentary seats in specific areas. To that end, he suggested the introduction of a multimember-district system and an increase in parliamentary seats distributed under the proportional representation system.

However, it is highly likely that his idea will be faced with the "wall of reality" during the deliberation in the National Assembly. In 1998, outgoing President Kim Dae-jung’s efforts to push ahead with the so-called "regional proportional representation system" was dashed, faced with opposition from the MDP and the Grand National Party (GNP), whose members come from specific areas respectively.

Mr. Roh was skeptical of constitutional revision for the plan to reduce the president’s power and increase the prime minister’s power, which was hinted at by Chung Mong-jun, scion of Hyundai and his political ally. Mr. Roh showed his willingness not to insist on constitutional revision, saying, "In a country with a high political level, either a president system or a parliamentary cabinet system succeeds, while in a country with a low level of politics, neither a president system nor a cabinet system works."

Young-Hae Choi yhchoi65@donga.com