Anchor: The heads of two minor opposition parties continued their hunger strike for a seventh day, calling on the larger parties to join their bid to introduce a new proportional representation system. While the ruling Democratic Party on Wednesday agreed to launch discussions on the issue, the main opposition Liberty Korea Party revealed a more negative outlook. 
Alannah Hill explains. 

Report: Under the current election system, voters cast two ballots in the general elections: one to choose the representative for their districts and the other for the political party of their preference. Of the 300-member parliament, 253 seats go to lawmakers with constituencies while 47 proportional representation seats are divided among the parties based on the popularity measure.  

The minor opposition camp says, however, there is a big mismatch between the popularity of smaller parties and the actual election numbers in district races. 

At the National Assembly on Wednesday, minor opposition Bareunmirae Party Chairman Sohn Hak-kyu and Justice Party Chairwoman Lee Jeong-mi continued their hunger strike for a seventh day calling for an election reform.
 
Sohn said the winner-takes-it-all and mammoth two-party system is failing.

[Sound bite: Bareunmirae Party Chairman Sohn Hak-kyu (Korean)] 
“President Moon Jae-in, the Democratic Party and the Liberty Korea Party should come to a definitive agreement on the mixed-member proportional representation system because I'm going to hold out for a long time." 

The smaller party leaders are calling for the introduction of a mixed-member proportional representation system, in which the number of parliamentary seats that each party receives is tied to the percentage of voters' support for parties.  

The Party for Democracy and Peace joined the other two minor opposition parties’ hunger strike Tuesday, adding pressure on the two major parties to help introduce the new system.  

According to that system, voters would still cast two votes, one for their district representative and one for the party of their choice. Each party would be allocated seats in accordance with their popularity. If support for a party is greater than the number of district seats a party wins, additional seats would be allocated to reflect that party's popularity. Conversely, if the percentage of votes for a party is lower than the amount of seats it wins, the party wouldn't get any proportional representation seats.  

If the proposal were retrospectively applied to the last general elections, the ruling Democratic Party(DP), which currently has 129 seats, would have won just 110 with their 34-point-three percent support rating. The main opposition Liberty Korea Party(LKP) would have lost two, while the Bareunmirae Party and the Party for Democracy and Peace would have gained 39 seats and the Justice Party would have added 18 to their current five.  

On Wednesday, the DP revealed its plan to launch discussions with opposition parties to reform the electoral system and seek to pass a related bill in an extraordinary parliamentary session in February. 

DP Secretary General Yun Ho-jung told reporters that his party agrees with the direction of the proposed reforms of the election system including the mixed-member proportional representation system. 

However, the three minor parties say that's not enough. They called on the DP to persuade the LKP to introduce the new election system. 

[Sound bite: Justice Party Chairwoman Lee Jeong-mi (Korean)]
“The Democratic Party and the Liberty Korea Party] should lock the door, just like they handled the budget bill behind closed doors, to discuss whether they want to set politics right and come up with an agreement on the mixed-member proportional representation system." 

The new floor leader of the LKP revealed a pessimistic outlook on the proposed system Wednesday. Na Kyung-won said the electoral system is about power structure and it would be difficult to establish a mixed-member proportional representation system without expanding the number of seats in parliament. 
Alannah Hill, KBS World Radio News.