Embassy of the Republic of Korea to Norway

The political structure of the Republic of Korea

Faraz German

Most of us know something about the Republic of Korea, whether it is taekwondo, the movie Parasite, kimchi, or even k-pop. These are quite easy to see in pop-culture or the Olympics, but what is usually left unknown for most of us living outside of the Republic of Korea is their politics and political framework. Therefore, to fill this gap of knowledge, let’s take a look at the politics of Korea.  

Type

The Republic of Korea is run under a semi presidential system.  a presidential representative democratic republic. These are some big words, but it basically means that the country has a mix of parliamentarism and a presidential system. The country has an executive branch consisting of the President, the Prime minister and other ministers, a legislative branch consisting of a national assembly of 300 seats, and a judiciary branch implementing a three instance trial system led by the Supreme Court.

Executive branch

The executive branch is led by the president, who is the only publicly elected member of this branch. Elections are held every five years to select a new president, and each president can serve only one five year term. After the president has taken office, the president appoints a prime minister, who must be approved by the national assembly. The president also appoints ministers for all of the 18 ministries in the country.

Legislative branch

The legislative branch of the Republic of Korea consists of a national assembly of 300 members. National assembly elections are held every four years, where each party has a politician representing them in each constituency. The politician with the most votes in a constituency gets elected(single-member district) to become a national assembly member, thus representing the constituency that elected the politician. Once elected, a member serves a four-year term. Of the 300 seats in the assembly, only 253 are given to publicly elected politicians, while the remaining 47 are distributed amongst politicians through a party-list proportional representation. In other words, the 47 seats are distributed to the parties based on the percentage of votes they receive in the party-list vote.

Judiciary branch

The judiciary branch in the Republic of Korea can roughly be divided into these ones: the Supreme Court, , the High Court, the District and Branch courts and Specialized Courts. The Republic of Korea also uses a three instance trial system, thus allowing for people to appeal court decisions in the order: the District Courts, the High Court, and the Supreme Court.

Main political parties

The Republic of Korea has a multi-party system, currently consisting of two major parties and several less popular ones. There are also frequent changes in the political landscape, thus allowing for new parties to be created quite frequently, either by changing names or by separation.

The current main political parties in the Republic of Korea are:

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Name: Democratic Party 더불어민주당
National Assembly Seats:  176
Current ruling party

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Name:  United Future Party  미래통합당
National Assembly Seats: 103
Main opposition party

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Name: Justice Party  정의당

National Assembly Seats:  6

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Name: People Party  국민의당
National Assembly Seats:  3

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Name: Open Democratic Party  열린민주당
National Assembly Seats:  3

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Name: Basic Income Party 기본소득당
National Assembly Seats:  1

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Name: Transition Party 시대전환당
National Assembly Seats: 1

** The remaining 7 seats are filled by politicians not representing any parties. 1 (25.6.2020)

Current political situation

The current president of the Republic of Korea is President Moon Jae-In, who took office on May 10, 2017. In the National Assembly, the Democratic Party currently has the majority of the seats. As the current ruling party, the Democratic Party took an astonishing 180 seats (60 %) at the national assembly elections held on the 15th of April 2020. 2

Sources:
    • Naver election results: 제21대 국회의원선거 개표결과 https://news.naver.com/main/election/nation2020/index.nhn
    • Regionalism, two-party dominance back to politics in S. Korea  – The Korea Herald - http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20200416000918
    • Supreme Court of Korea: https://eng.scourt.go.kr/eng/judiciary/introduction.jsp
    • Assembly of Korea: http://www.assembly.go.kr