The People Power Party warned that South Korea could follow the path of Hungary and Poland's democratic backsliding, criticizing the Democratic Party of Korea's unilateral passage of three judiciary reform bills as "tyranny of the majority."
"Hungary and Poland achieved democratization in the late 1980s around the same time and were once considered exemplary cases of democracy taking root in Eastern Europe, but 30 years later, they are now regarded as representative countries where democracy has retreated," PPP Floor Leader Song Eon-seok said at a policy meeting at the National Assembly on Monday.
Song pointed to majority party overreach as the cause of democratic regression in those countries.
"The authoritarian systems of Hungary and Poland are fundamentally different from typical 20th-century one-party dictatorships," he said. "They seized parliamentary power through majority party strength and used it to neutralize the judiciary, which led to democratic backsliding."
"Unfortunately, concerns are growing that our country is following a similar historical trajectory to Hungary and Poland," he added.
Song drew parallels between the Hungarian and Polish regimes and what he called "the Lee Jae-myung regime."
"The common thread is that they embarked on the path to dictatorial power through judicial destruction disguised as judicial reform," he said. "Calling such judicial destruction 'reform' is itself a brainwashing operation, Big Brother-style language manipulation politics."
The PPP launched a protest march Monday afternoon to criticize the passage of the three judiciary bills. The march began at the National Assembly and proceeded through Sinchon and Seodaemun to Cheong Wa Dae, where the party planned to urge President Lee to exercise his veto authority over the bills.
The PPP also called for swift passage of the Gyeongbuk-Daegu Integration Act, criticizing the Democratic Party for being lukewarm on the matter.
"Our party made a magnanimous decision to forgo even filibustering, a legitimate tool available to minority parties, for the future of 5 million residents of Daegu and North Gyeongsang Province," Song said. "But the Democratic Party is effectively refusing to process the bill with one excuse after another. Only one day remains in the February extraordinary session, so the Democratic Party must stop its majority tyranny and pass the special act immediately."