Despite pledges, parties nominate fewer women, young people

Despite their pledges to reform the country’s political system, Korea’s political parties nominated fewer women and millennial candidates this year compared to the previous general election.

Officials from the Gyeonggi branch of the National Election Commission remind people to vote in the upcoming April 10 general election at the Suwon Convention Center on Sunday, 17 days before polls open. [YONHAP]

Despite their pledges to reform the country’s political system, Korea’s political parties nominated fewer women and millennial candidates this year compared to the previous general election.

According to candidate registration data from the National Election Commission, 21 parties have nominated 686 candidates to run in directly elected regional constituencies, but only 97 candidates, or 14.1 percent, are women.

In the previous general election, held four years ago, women made up 19.1 percent of the candidates nominated by parties to stand in parliamentary races across the country.

Only 37 candidates were under 40, making up a paltry 5.4 percent of parliamentary hopefuls this year. In 2020, 6.1 percent of candidates were under 40.

Officials in both the conservative People Power Party (PPP) and liberal Democratic Party (DP) had argued strongly in favor of increasing women and youth representation among candidates before the nomination process began.

At the first meeting of the PPP’s nomination committee on Jan. 16, committee chair Chung Young-hwan said he would “work tirelessly to uncover and promote young and female talent and introduce new political faces.”

The same sentiment was expressed on Jan. 12 by his DP counterpart, Lim Hyuk-baek, who said the party’s guiding principle for selecting candidates was “innovation and solidarity” and that the party would “focus on nominating young candidates who are pursuing change.”

However, neither party appeared to have fulfilled its promises to nominate more young people and women.

The average age of PPP candidates in this year’s election is 57.4, and only 4.4 percent of the party’s candidates are under 40. Women comprise only 11.9 percent of the party’s parliamentary nominees.

Meanwhile, only 3.7 percent of the DP’s candidates are under 40, although the average age of the party’s nominees — 56.6 — is lower than that of the PPP. Women make up 16.8 percent of the party’s candidates in the election.

Seven out of 10 of the wealthiest candidates in this year’s election are running under the PPP banner, with the richest being Kim Bok-deok, who is running as the PPP’s candidate for the Bucheon-A constituency in Gyeonggi. Kim’s declared wealth and assets total 144.6 billion won ($107.6 million).

With the exception of PPP Rep. Tae Yong-ho, who is running in Seoul’s Guro-B electoral district, 491 out of 588 male candidates, or 83.4 percent, have completed Korea’s mandatory military service.

But 239 candidates also have criminal records.

Observers believe that both political parties' nomination processes are skewed in favor of allies of their respective flagbearers in the 2022 presidential election.

Thirty-eight out of 45 current PPP lawmakers who declared their support for President Yoon Suk Yeol’s candidacy were renominated to run in this year’s general election.

The DP, which has been dogged in recent months by allegations that its nomination process was designed to eliminate lawmakers deemed insufficiently loyal to leader Lee Jae-myung, saw 10 lawmakers leave the party after they were not renominated.

BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]