Rebuilding Korea Party Rejects 15-Seat Bar, Demands 10 for Bloc Status

The Rebuilding Korea Party pushed back on a proposal by Democratic Party leader Kim Min-seok to lower the threshold for forming a negotiating bloc in the National Assembly to 15 seats, saying the bar should be cut to 10. The party also said it had never held talks with the Democratic Party on political reform or on any alliance or merger, and called for formal consultations and concrete action.

In a statement on the 16th, the Rebuilding Korea Party said it had "had no formal or informal contact with the Democratic Party leadership on political reform, alliance or unification," adding that "the Democratic Party has never even proposed such contact." The statement drew a line under remarks Kim made the same day on Democratic Party TV, where he said he had "gone around to each party, met with all of them and built a degree of consensus."

Kim earlier appeared on the party's YouTube program "Minty 07" the same day and said "an alliance of progressive forces must be realized," laying out four proposals: easing the negotiating bloc requirement, a reasonable electoral system, runoff voting and unification behind the most competitive candidate. On the bloc requirement, he said, "People seem to think that around 15 seats is realistic and acceptable as a starting point."

The Rebuilding Korea Party countered that "the party's official position on normalizing the negotiating bloc requirement is 10 seats," arguing that "the current 20-seat requirement is a remnant of the Yushin era, created under the Park Chung-hee government to raise the bar for negotiating blocs, so returning to the pre-Yushin figure of 10 is both common sense and the natural course."

Rebuilding Korea Party lawmaker Jung Choun-sook also publicly asked Kim on Facebook the same day, "What is the basis for easing the requirement to 15 seats?" Jung said, "You said you had seen the reality of a weak progressive camp. That is true," adding that it is "because every political and electoral institution in South Korea is designed to favor only the two big parties."

Citing the National Assembly policy research posts and state party subsidies allocated to negotiating blocs, Jung repeated the case for a 10-seat threshold. "The two big parties take more than 90% of state party subsidies, and all the Assembly support goes to the two big parties as well. How is a small progressive force supposed to build capacity?" she said.

The Rebuilding Korea Party also demanded that the Democratic Party act on discussions to overhaul the system. "What is needed is action, not words. An alliance must be institutionalized and promises must be kept," it said. "The Democratic Party needs to present a concrete roadmap and take action, including implementing the agreed roundtable declaration, forming a political reform consultative body and holding a third roundtable meeting."