`Brain Death National Assembly` to be Continued

The first half tenure of the 16th National Assembly leadership including the speaker of the assembly and standing committee chairmen has ended on May 29. However, since the assembly composition negotiation between the Grand National Party (GNP) and the Millennium Democratic Party (MDP) has ultimately broken off, the `brain death national assembly,` in which the functions of the assembly is suspended, is likely to continue.

Especially, even though the two parties have resolved their differences with a revision of the National Assembly Act including party membership desertion of the assembly speaker and free balloting for a neutral steering of the national assembly in February this year, the concerned parties are continuously engaging in tug-of-war over the speaker post while passing over the legal death line in a midst of approaching a national event, the World Cup finals. Over the behaviors, harsher criticism on, `taking care of the partisan interest and strategies and disgracing the nation,` is mounting high.

Additionally, nineteen major civilian related laws such as `Act on lending business registration, financial use and protection`, which defines a legal limit on private bond interests and `Employment Insurance Act,` which expands insurance applications to temporary workers, have come to be delayed eventually, and a resolution on refunding of deposit and insurance bond directly linked with the country risk rating has to be postponed.

GNP held a party representatives` congress at the national assembly in the day and selected Rep. Park Kwan-Yong as a party candidate for the post of the speaker of the national assembly, and then demanded to convene the session of the assembly as all the attended representatives (113 Reps.) went into the main meeting room, but failed to select the head of the assembly as the speaker Lee Man-Seop declined to chair the session citing the deficient representation.

GNP spokesperson Nam Kyung-Pil commented on and criticized, `MDP is still insisting that it is `the ruling party` to have the head of the legislature taken even though President Kim Dae-Jung is not a party member anymore, and the party has rather a secret scheme to drive into a political realignment in the future.`

On the issue, DMP floor leader Chung Kyun-Hwan said, `When the GNP assumes the speaker post, the processing of civilian related affairs would become complicated as it is clear now that the party is not cooperating even in the resolution of the deposit and insurance bond refunding, which is directly linked to our country` risk rating.` and claimed, `Reform of state affairs would stop when the GNP takes over the speaker post as the party is up to turning the National Assembly into an election campaigning staging ground.`

Young-Chan Yoon Sung-Won Park yyc11@donga.com swpark@donga.com