Socialist Party (South Korea)

Socialist Party 사회당 社會黨
President	Ahn Hyo-sang
Founded	29 November 1998 (1998-11-29)
Dissolved	4 March 2012 (2012-03-04)
Merged into	New Progressive Party
Headquarters	11F Nagyeong Building, 115-62 Gongdeok-dong, Mapo-gu, Seoul
Ideology	Social democracy
Political position	Centre-left to left-wing
Colours	Red, Black and Green
Politics of South Korea Political parties Elections

Socialist Party
Hangul	사회당
Hanja	社會黨
Revised Romanization	Sahoedang
McCune–Reischauer	Sahoetang

The Socialist Party (Korean: 사회당; Hanja: 社會黨; RR: Sahoedang; MR: Sahoetang; SP) was a minor left-wing political party in South Korea, founded in 1998. It advocated an ideology of socialism, social republicanism, peace and environmentalism.

On 19 February 2012, at its final Sixteenth Party Congress, the Socialist Party voted by 404 votes to 54 to merge with the New Progressive Party. The party was formally dissolved on 4 March 2012.

History

The People's Victory 21 (Korean: 국민승리21) party (the later DLP) was formed in preparation for the presidential election of 1997. This was an attempt to unite South Korean progressives in a single party, but dissenting progressives who focused on class struggle argued that there was an excess of nationalism in the VoP21 platform. As an example, they pointed to the slogan of Kwon Young-ghil, VoP21's presidential candidate, "Stand up, Korea!" (Korean: "일어나라 코리아!"). After the election, these dissenting progressives formed the "Youth Progressive Party" (Korean: 청년진보당).

The Youth Progressive Party ran for election to the National Assembly in the Guro-gu local constituency, and attained 4.1% of the votes cast. In August 2001, the party changed its name to "Socialist Party" under the slogan "Against Capitalism, Against WPK", targeting certain nationalists known as the "NL" (National Liberation) faction within the Democratic Labor Party.

The party changed its name to "Hope Socialist Party" (Korean: 희망사회당) in April 2006, and to "Korea Socialist Party" (Korean: 한국사회당) in October 2006 due to the Korean law forbidding the usage of a party name for four years when registration is canceled.

In the 2008 parliamentary elections, the party amassed less than 3% of the vote, and the national election committee consequently canceled its registration. In November, the party re-registered with the name "Socialist Party".

Elections

On several occasions, the party ran candidates for president or parliament, for example Kim Yeong-gyu in the 2002 presidential election, but it never won any elections.

For the 2007 presidential election, Geum Min ran as the party's candidate for president. He proposed the idea of social republicanism, subsequently adopted as a component of the party's platform.

Election results

President

Election	Candidate	Votes	%	Result
2007	Geum Min	18,223	0.08	Not elected

Legislature

Election	Leader	Constituency				Party list				Seats		Position	Status
		Votes	%	Seats	+/-	Votes	%	Seats	+/-	No.	+/–
2004	Geum Min	8,004	0.04	0 / 243	new	47,311	0.22	0 / 56	new	0 / 299	new	9th	Extra-parliamentary
2008	Ahn Hyo-sang					35,496	0.21	0 / 54		0 / 299		11th	Extra-parliamentary

See also

• List of political parties in South Korea
• Politics of South Korea
• Elections in South Korea
• Basic income
• Basic Income Party
• Socialism in South Korea
• Progressivism in South Korea

External links

• Official website