Lawmakers Turn Eyes from Clean Election

The political sector has committed itself to making the presidential elections fair and transparent. But as the National Assembly`s Special Committee for Political Reform failed to pass the political reform bill, the commitment of the political sector is expected to end up in smoke.

In particular lawmakers turned a cold shoulder to the bill on transparent political fund, which was devised to prevent illegal fund from flowing into the political sector, triggering criticism from the public.

The National Assembly`s Special Committee for Political Reform was originally expected to address the revision of the Political Party law and Election law yesterday. But it failed to hold a meeting with the differences in the position of each party. The committee comprises ten lawmakers from the Grand National Party (GNP), nine from the New Millennium Democratic Party(MDP) and one from the United Liberal Democrats(ULD).

Thus, a number of pending bills, which were to be addressed at the plenary meeting today, are on the verge of collapse. The bills include the introduction of confirmation hearing for chiefs of the National Intelligence Service, the prosecution, the National Tax Service and the police, and the introduction of confirmation hearing for a premier candidate before the inauguration of the president.

The GNP set its position to first deal with the revised bill on the National Assembly law, which had been agreed upon at the Special Committee for Political Reform, then take time to negotiate on the Election law and the Political Party law. But committee members from the MDP held a meeting before the committee and refused to attend the committee meeting, saying that it was of no use to holed the committee meeting as the GNP did not show any willingness to revise the Election law, which was the most essential ahead of the presidential election.

Meanwhile civic groups criticize the political sector. According to them, the political sector had not paid any attention to the recommendation for the revision of the Election and Political Party laws made by the National Election Commission in early September. And now it embarked on deliberation on the recommendation after being pressured by the public.

In fact, the GNP and the MDP agreed to form the Special Committee for Political Reform on late October, but they put off the activation of the committee. Then they have only had two rounds of meetings since it actually formed the committee on Nov. 7.

The National Election Commission (NEC) proposed to expand the number of TV debate, policy advertisement and policy debate by presidential runners, which would be funded by the nation, to repeal campaign speech meetings, to recommend candidates to use check or credit card when they use more than 500,000 won. The NEC also suggested that parties disclose the information about donors and the amount of donated money to make political fund transparent.

But as the GNP resisted the repeal of campaign speech meetings and both parties remained skeptical about the revision of the Political Party law, bringing the discussion to a stalemate.

Jong-Koo Yoon Hyung-gwon Pu jkmas@donga.com bookum90@donga.com