Korean PM labels ballot shortage a violation of political rights, calls for NEC overhaul

South Korean Prime Minister Kim Min-seok on Wednesday called for sweeping reforms of the National Election Commission after the ballot shortage fiasco during last week’s local elections.

“We need to institute reforms so tough that they amount to dismantling the National Election Commission,” Kim said in a meeting with Cho Jeong-sik, the newly elected speaker of the National Assembly.

Korea’s political establishment appears to be responding to young Koreans’ vocal demands for a major overhaul of the current election oversight system.

Kim brought up the issue while visiting the National Assembly on Wednesday to congratulate Cho on his election as speaker.

“Today, we have ordered all government ministries to adopt the official phrase ‘an infringement of citizens’ political rights’ in regard to this incident,” the prime minister said.

“In the wake of this incident, the government must recognize the importance of ensuring that citizens’ political rights are never infringed upon. The National Assembly will need to thread the needle in the reform of the National Election Commission, which is a dilemma our democracy has never faced before. Your guidance of the parliamentary probe [into the incident] can be an example of that,” Kim said to the speaker.

Cho said that in a full session of the National Assembly on Thursday he would review a request for a parliamentary probe submitted by the ruling Democratic Party and the main opposition People Power Party and work on setting up a special committee to handle the probe.

There is broad consensus on the need to fundamentally overhaul the NEC, which, as an independent body under the Constitution, has largely been insulated from oversight and scrutiny.

With student councils at 18 universities issuing position statements on Wednesday, politicians find themselves under increasing pressure to respond to the demonstrators, largely in their 20s and 30s, who decry the infringement of universal suffrage and basic rights.

“Since the election, lawmakers in the group chat have been expressing remorse for not doing more to reach out to the younger generation. There’s been a lot of debate about how the reform should begin, but more needs to be said about the NEC issue,” a first-term lawmaker with the Democratic Party told the Hankyoreh.

A second-term People Power Party lawmaker from the southeastern Yeongnam region said, “This was such a failure of the electoral system that there weren’t even enough ballots, which is the bare minimum for the election. The younger generation isn’t going to put up with such a mind-boggling m