PPP innovation committee demands senior members declare not to seek reelection or run in difficult districts

The innovation committee of the ruling People Power Party demanded Friday that senior members and those close to President Yoon Suk Yeol either give up their bid for reelection or run in more competitive districts in next year’s general elections.

The demand is one of a series of reform measures that the committee put forward in an effort to revamp the party’s image so as to boost its chances in April’s parliamentary elections amid deepening concerns in the wake of the party’s crushing defeat in last month’s local by-election.

“We strongly demand that members of the party leadership, heavyweight members and lawmakers close to the president either declare not to run in the general elections or run in more difficult districts in the metropolitan areas,” said Ihn Yohan, the American Korean chairman of the committee.

“Our party is in a crisis. Furthermore, the country is in a crisis. In order to correct it, we need determination under the bigger framework of sacrifice,” he said.

Ihn has stressed that lawmakers who have served three or more terms, especially those in the party’s stronghold of Gyeongsang provinces in the country’s southeast, should no longer seek reelection in their comfortable constituencies, and run in hard-to-get districts.

He made the same point in an interview with Yonhap News Agency on Thursday.

Other reform measures that the committee suggested include a 10 percent reduction in the number of lawmakers from the current 300-member National Assembly and giving up the lawmakers’ immunity from arrest while the Assembly is in session.

It also suggested reducing the wages of lawmakers, making them forfeit wages when they are arrested, and excluding the bottom 20 percent of lawmakers in terms of performance from party nominations in the next elections.