The national RAY chairperson election race has begun. This year's election is the first one where local members of the credit union will directly elect the chairperson. The Ministry of the Interior and Safety and the National Credit Union Federation of Korea are focusing their efforts on the preparation process, hoping that the direct election will be the first step in the credit union's innovation. However, local credit union staff evaluate that the direct chairperson election system is a weak remedy for innovating the credit union.
According to the National Credit Union Federation of Korea on the 31st, the election management committee will accept registrations for preliminary candidates for the '1st nationwide simultaneous National Credit Union chairperson election' until February 17 for the election scheduled for March 5. The Ministry of the Interior and Safety and the Federation have entrusted the overall management of this election to the election management committee. This year's election is the first time general members have voting rights in chairperson selection since the establishment of the credit union. Until now, the chairperson selection has been made through an indirect election method involving delegates. In the past, chairperson candidates would go to great lengths, including distributing money, to win over the votes of about 100 delegates per credit union. In contrast, the opinions of members without voting rights were often ignored.
Because of this, the National Assembly revised the National Credit Union Act in 2021 and introduced a mandatory direct election system. The intention behind the introduction of this system is to prevent fraudulent chairperson elections and encourage the opinions of members to be transparently reflected in credit union management. However, not all credit unions will implement direct elections this year. Among the 543 credit unions with an average total asset balance of over 200 billion won, chairpersons will be elected through direct elections, while the remaining 574 credit unions will still elect chairpersons through general meeting selections and delegate voting.
In some local credit unions, there are still attempts to engage in money-driven elections. After the registration of preliminary candidates, the election management committee caught individuals who promised money and provided meals to delegates in Busan, and reported them to the police. An employee working at a small local credit union said, "Those who want to run for chairperson are still devoting themselves to recruiting delegates, and I don't see any difference from the past."
While large credit unions will implement direct elections, expectations for new blood to be infused here are low. According to the enforcement decree of the National Credit Union Act, to become a chairperson, one must meet one of the following criteria: ▲ six years or more of service as an executive of the credit union ▲ ten years or more of service at the Federation or in a permanent position at the credit union ▲ ten years or more of service as a public servant in a financial-related agency ▲ ten years or more of service at a financial institution subject to oversight by the Financial Services Commission. Based on these requirements, a financial professional who has worked for more than ten years in a bank could also become a chairperson of a local credit union.
However, the National Credit Union Act, which is the higher law governing the enforcement decree, imposes a restriction that candidates running for chairperson must hold a credit union investment account for more than two years. This provision takes into account the nature of credit unions as local cooperatives. Some see this as a barrier preventing competent external talents with financial-related expertise from participating. For this reason, there are complaints in anonymous workplace communities that "the election is expected to result in the re-election of old chairpersons this time as well."
Experts advise moving away from the fruitless debate over the election method and focusing on 'how to select suitable candidates.' Cho Chang-hoon, a professor at Hallym University's Graduate School of International Studies, noted, "If the National Credit Union Federation of Korea establishes and publicly shares a database containing information about chairperson candidates under its leadership, it will allow for objective evaluation of election results regardless of who holds voting rights." Professor Cho added, "If the database includes information on candidates' financial careers and local backgrounds, voters will be able to assess both the candidates' financial expertise and their local relevance simultaneously."