44 lawmakers to register new party

Formalizing their divorce from the governing Millennium Democratic Party, 39 ruling party lawmakers loyal to President Roh Moo-hyun, joined by five former opposition Grand National Party lawmakers, register as a new party of the National Assembly today. The new party has tentatively been named the “People’s Participatory and Unity Party.”
To win negotiating power in the Assembly, a political party must have at least 20 elected lawmakers among its membership.
The divorce follows nearly nine months of internal feuding between the new leadership faction, made up of lawmakers loyal to Mr. Roh, and its old leadership faction, comprised of lawmakers loyal to the party’s founder, former President Kim Dae-jung, over whether the governing party should be done away with and a new ruling party created in its place.
The old leadership faction wanted to maintain the ruling party in its present form and the new leadership faction wanted to create a new governing party.
Analysts said the move will realign political parties in the 273-seat National Assembly. The opposition Grand National Party will remain the largest, with 149 seats; the Millennium Democratic Party, maintained by the Kim loyalists, will hold 62 seats; and the new party will have 44 seats.
Representative Kim Keun-tae, a moderate within the governing party, was chosen as the party’s floor leader.
With President Roh still maintaining his membership in the Millennium Democratic Party, political observers see a possible shift in the working dynamics between the legislature and the Blue House.
The redrawing of political lines also is expected to produce strange bedfellows. Representative Kim Sang-hyun, a Millennium Democrat, told reporters that “The Grand National Party and the Millennium Democratic Party, working together, can amend the constitution to adopt a parliamentary-style government.” The two parties combined will have 211 seats, more than the two-thirds needed for constitutional revision.

by Lee Jung-min