“It’s a constitutional amendment to increase voter turnout for local election”: PPP lawmaker explains why PPP torpedoed constitutional amendment to limit martial law power

People Power Party lawmaker Ahn Cheol-soo said on the 7th, the day of the National Assembly’s vote on the constitutional amendment bill, “This constitutional amendment is nothing more and nothing less than a referendum meant to lure voters and raise turnout for Lee Jae-myung’s Democratic Party in the local elections. Therefore, I oppose this amendment.”

Ahn made the remarks that morning in a Facebook post titled, “I oppose a unilateral constitutional amendment without agreement just before the local elections.”

Ahn took issue with the procedural legitimacy of the amendment. He criticized it, saying, “A constitutional amendment led by Lee Jae-myung’s Democratic Party is being pushed forward,” and added, “I could find no reasonable basis at all for pushing a constitutional amendment right before the local elections without agreement with the main opposition party.”

Ahn also raised concerns about the revision of the martial law provisions. He said, “Even under the current Constitution, martial law was stopped,” and asked, “What is the real intention behind strengthening the National Assembly’s power to lift martial law?”

He continued, “If President Lee Jae-myung were to declare martial law, is there any guarantee that the Democratic Party would lift it?” He argued, “Looking at the Democratic Party members of the Legislation and Judiciary Committee, who are going beyond extremes into even greater extremes, it is actually highly likely that the National Assembly’s power to lift martial law would be turned into a power to approve martial law and thereby neutralized.”