PPP's Yoon Sang-hyun calls for permanent NEC audit body, full-time chair

People Power Party lawmaker Yoon Sang-hyun, who chairs the special parliamentary investigation committee on the ballot shortage during the June 3 local elections, has proposed establishing a permanent internal audit body within the National Election Commission and making the NEC chairperson a full-time position.

On Monday, Yoon convened a seminar at the National Assembly building in Yeouido, Seoul, under the theme "Disenfranchisement of citizens: How should K-conservatism take responsibility?" He put forward three proposals: making the NEC chairperson a full-time standing post, establishing an internal audit committee within the NEC, and enacting a ballot management law that would allow a recount by mutual agreement of the ruling and opposition parties.

"How can the NEC chairperson show up once a month and claim to oversee the secretariat and direct the secretary-general? The NEC chairperson is, in a word, nothing more than a puppet," Yoon said. He added that not only should the chairperson serve full time, but at least three of the nine NEC commissioners should also be made standing members.

He further proposed that the NEC could be audited even without constitutional reform. "The idea is to create a permanent, independent internal audit committee within the NEC — with members recommended by both the ruling and opposition parties — to conduct internal audits and require reporting to the National Assembly," he said.

Yoon also raised concerns about vote tallies in Incheon. "In Songdo 1 and 2 dong, the valid vote counts for candidates Park Chan-dae and Yoo Jeong-bok were identical. The only way to verify whether that is truly correct is through a court ruling," he said. "I am proposing that we enact a special bipartisan management law that would allow a recount if the parties or candidates agree."

Other PPP lawmakers at the seminar said the government and the ruling party must share responsibility for the ballot shortage and that constitutional reform should not be the top priority.

PPP lawmaker Bae Jun-young said the crisis could have been avoided had the National Assembly's Public Administration and Security Committee conducted advance inspections across the country last year. "We were utterly unable to do anything about the NEC because of the protection afforded by the majority party," he said. "I consider the government and the Democratic Party to be accomplices and bystanders who ruined the election — the flower of democracy — and dug up the flower bed."

Bae then criticized the push for constitutional reform, saying the Democratic Party had in effect dismantled the prosecution without any constitutional amendment. "Whether it takes constitutional reform or something else, the problem must be solved — but trying to frame everything through constitutional reform first is just an attempt to drag things out through political wrangling," he said, likening the approach to "a quack who prescribes before making a diagnosis."

Yoon echoed that view after the seminar, telling reporters: "Once you go down the path of constitutional reform, you get completely sucked in like a black hole. The law can be fully debated before any single-issue constitutional amendment." He added that the goal was to establish a permanent audit committee through bipartisan agreement and give both parties the power to recommend its members.