Civic group lodges constitutional petition against major parties’ offshoot parties

A civic group filed a constitutional petition on Friday against the two major parties' offshoot parties launched to win proportional representation seats, accusing the parent parties of abusing a system intended to benefit minor parties. Ahead of the April 10 general elections, the ruling People Power Party (PPP) and the main opposition Democratic Party (DP) each launched paper parties, commonly known as satellite parties, for the proportional representation seats in the 300-member National Assembly that are allocated to parties based on the total number of votes they receive. Such satellite parties are often merged into their parent parties after the elections, contributing to their total parliamentary seats. The Citizens' Coalition for Economic Justice filed a petition, along with a request to suspend the satellite parties, with the Constitutional Court, saying that the PPP and the DP established them for the sole purpose of securing proportional representation seats. "The two giant parties went beyond compromising the purpose of the proportional representation system intended to benefit minor parties to seize parliamentary seats and election subsidies from other parties," the group claimed, adding that this is in breach of the spirit of representative democracy. The civic group had filed a similar petition against the two major parties ahead of the previous general elections in 2000, but the court dismissed it Source: Yonhap News Agency