Yong Hye-in defends keeping Assembly seat amid Cabinet nomination backlash

Gender Equality Minister nominee Yong Hye-in mounted a multi-front defense of her nomination Thursday, rejecting a week of criticism over her dual role, her party's finances and even her spouse's salary. 

"I believe realizing the dream of dignity for everyone matters more than my own personal advancement — and that's why I accepted this nomination, to help build a gender-equal society for everyone under the Lee Jae Myung administration," she told reporters at the National Assembly in Yeongdeungpo District, western Seoul. 

Yong, a 36-year-old proportional-representation lawmaker and founder of the minor progressive Basic Income Party, was nominated by President Lee to lead the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family in late August — a pick that would make her the youngest Cabinet minister in Korean constitutional history if confirmed. She is now waiting for a confirmation hearing, which has yet to be scheduled, before she can officially take over the ministry.

Why she won't give up her seat  

Her nomination has most pointedly raised questions about her plan to keep her Assembly seat while serving as minister. 

Under current law, lawmakers can double as members of the Cabinet, though proportional representatives have customarily given up their parliamentary seats to join the Cabinet, passing on the post to the next candidate in line on the proportional representation list.

A proportional representation lawmaker is one who wins a National Assembly seat based on their party's share of the national vote rather than by winning a specific local district, with seats allocated from a list the party submits ahead of the election.

If Yong steps down, her party loses its seat in the Assembly. 

"Even as a party with seats in the Assembly over the past six years, we've had to face a wall no matter how policy-focused our alternatives and proposals were, simply because we're a small party," she said. "Keeping my proportional seat is about continuing to do politics responsibly and propose alternatives through whatever small platform a one-seat party like ours can secure."

Yong also argued that the arrangement is legal and without real precedent to judge it. "This itself is the first case of nominating a sitting opposition lawmaker as a Cabinet minister candidate since the 1997 DJP coalition between then-President Kim Dae-jung and Kim Jong-pil," she said, referring to the power-sharing pact that helped elect Kim Dae-jung president in 1997. "It's difficult to judge this against precedent."

"The question of representation applies just as much to district lawmakers," she said. "If anything, we need to reconsider whether the custom of proportional representation lawmakers resigning their seats has become something politicians think of as a way to divide positions among themselves."

She added, "If my own personal advancement had mattered more to me than the decision of the person with appointment authority, who asked me to work for the country and its people, I wouldn't have accepted the ministerial nomination."

On the satellite party system and state subsidies

Some frame her retention of the seat as legitimizing the "satellite party" system she used to win it twice — first through the DP's 2020 satellite Together Citizens Party, then its 2024 successor, the Democratic Alliance Party — moving back to the Basic Income Party each time.

As a seated party, the Basic Income Party qualifies for roughly 1.1 billion won ($821,000) a year in state subsidies, plus legislative staff and Assembly office space — all of which it would lose if it fell out of the Assembly.

"I agree with Rep. Na Kyung-won's proposal to cut off state subsidies for satellite parties. Both the People Power Party and the Democratic Party, which created satellite parties, should have their subsidies cut for fairness."

"I'm calling on both the People Power Party and the Democratic Party: let's reform state subsidies as part of this round of political reform too," she said. "If dependence is too high to abolish the system altogether, then at least let's give parties without seats in the Assembly public subsidies in proportion to their share of the national vote, the same way voters chose them — that's how politics actually changes."

Yong also rejected criticism that the Basic Income Party is a "parasite party."

"Does it become true just because a party that received hundreds of billions of won in state subsidies while acting as a gatekeeper for the leader of the insurrection [former President Yoon Suk Yeol] points a finger at the Basic Income Party and calls it a parasite party?" she asked. "Between the People Power Party, which depends on state subsidies for 35.7 percent of its annual revenue, and the Basic Income Party, which has relied on membership dues and received only 1.6 percent of its revenue from state subsidies, which one is actually the parasite party?"

On the fake party branch claims 

Yong also pushed back on allegations that six of the Basic Income Party's 10 city and provincial chapters are registered at addresses that look like fronts — apartments and farms rather than functioning offices — a claim that, if it holds up, could threaten the party's registration and cost Yong her Assembly seat altogether.

"Rep. Kim Jung-jae, who raised the allegation, has served three terms but doesn't seem to have much experience with party administration, so I think she may not fully understand how parties actually operate," Yong said. Kim chairs the National Assembly's Gender Equality and Family Committee, which will oversee Yong's confirmation hearing. "Setting up a city or provincial chapter and having an office doesn't get you a bigger subsidy — the share of state subsidies each party receives is fixed."

"The farm that one media outlet has been promoting like an advertisement for days now is the home of our party's South Chungcheong chapter chair, who moved there to farm decades ago," she said. "By law, city and provincial chapters must have a registered office address, and we simply used the home of our chapter chair — our only full-time staffer, who directly handles the chapter's affairs — as that address."

She added, "It's already been reported to and accepted by the National Election Commission, which has also conducted an on-site inspection. It's obviously not a false registration, and it's not illegal under the Political Parties Act."

Update, Sept. 10: More of Yong's statements and information about the controversy surrounding her nomination added.

BY KIM EUN-BIN [[email protected]]