Academia Warns Assembly

A depreciating won. An unstable financial market. A total of one million without jobs expected in February.

The three ominous signs that marked Korea during the financial crisis three years ago have re-emerged. But the dueling political parties remain apart, each camp adamantly refusing to compromise.

Park Chan-wook, a professor of politics at Seoul National University, has described the current parliamentary stalemate as "political camps adrift in the seas of crisis."

Against such chaos, academia and the public are calling for the two camps to compromise, especially in regard to approving the 40 trillion won ($36 billion) in public funds needed to complete financial and corporate restructuring.

What is being voiced is a demand to drop partisanship for the moment and go ahead with approving the second package of public funds. Then the political camps can begin fighting about who is responsible for the breakdown in parliamentary proceedings.

"The public funds package should be dealt with, giving it the urgency that it deserves," Professor Suh Jin-young of Korea University said.

"The opposition party should exercise the political resolve to separate pending economic issues from partisan bickering," he added.

Others pressed the ruling party to yield and take the initiative in finding a way out.

"The ruling party is not owning up to the fact that it, too, is responsible for the paralysis in parliament," Professor Lew Seok-choon of Yonsei University said.

"The ruling party should first extend its hand to the opposition party to break the stalemate," he said.

But the opposition party continues its calls for President Kim Dae-jung to apologize and the prosecution leadership and National Assembly speaker to resign. In response, the ruling party urges the opposition to speedily return to the floor.

Before the parliament went into total freeze, the public funds measure was scheduled to be approved Friday.

by Chun Young-gi