Party nomination is most likely to be banned in municipal elections, beginning in June next year. The ruling Saenuri Party and the opposition Democratic Party are moving to revise the election law for such a ban when the National Assembly opens its regular session in September.

There is no problem with party nomination itself. What is wrong with a party seeking to advance its causes at the municipal level by selecting their own nominees for local elections?

Moreover, those running for election to the council in a county, a small city or a ward in a large city and those running for election to the post of mayor may feel ideologically closer to one party or another. Indeed, the Constitutional Court ruled in 2003 that it would go against the Constitution to forbid municipal candidates from stating which party they supported.

Parties were allowed to select nominees for municipal mayoral posts in 1995 and those for election to municipal councils in 2006. Behind the decisions made in favor of party nominations was the rationale that a ban on parties being represented in municipal politics could not be justified.

In practice, however, party nominations have proved detrimental to the promotion of clean elections. It is an open secret that those planning to run in municipal elections bribe members of the National Assembly from their electoral districts for their nominations. Once elected, they try to recoup the money they have spent for their nominations by taking bribes from local businesspeople.

With money-for-nomination deals being a major source of corruption at the municipal level, advocacy groups have long demanded that the law on election to public office be revised in the way that party nominations will be banned in municipal elections. They have advised that a ban on party nominations would help remove much corruption in municipalities.

Heeding this advice, the ruling Saenuri Party and the opposition Democratic Party promised during the run-up to the December presidential election to revise the election law to ban party nominations in municipal elections.

The Saenuri Party forwent municipal nominations when by-elections were held on April 24. The Democratic Party decided last week to adopt the proposed nomination ban as its official policy at a conference of party-affiliated lawmakers, which is scheduled for Monday.

But the opposition party acknowledged that many of its lawmakers were still opposed to the proposal. It said it was considering putting it to a vote of all party members, instead of party-affiliated lawmakers.

Either way, it will have to adopt it as a party policy. Otherwise, it would be seen to the electorate that the party turned a blind eye to money-for-nomination deals. That would be most unfortunate for the party, with less than a year left until the next local elections are held.