[EDITORIALS]Immaturity in the Assembly

The legislative activities of certain first-term National Assembly members, from both the governing and opposition parties, are causing distress and annoyance. Their speech and behavior is arrogant, insolent and undignified. Listening to their remarks, one wonders whether they have a basic knowledge of democracy. It is hard to find even a speck of respect for the national system in their words. Even when their parties’ leaders try to restrain them, they are obstinate to the hilt. They must be under the illusion that to refuse to heed party leadership is to act upon their lofty convictions.
During the National Assembly’s questioning of cabinet ministers, these lawmakers were unbearably indecent. Regarding the Contstitutional Court’s ruling that the bill to relocate the capital was unconstitutional, some freshman lawmakers from the governing Uri Party had the nerve to compare the decision to “Hitler’s Nazism and Mussolini’s fascism,” and to call the ruling “a legal coup d’etat by the conservative Constitutional Court.” These are the people who spearhead “ideological offensives,” disdaining the floor leaders’ agreement to refrain from political labeling. They have called the opposition “an extreme right-wing totalitarian power” and “ultra-conservative idiots.”
Meanwhile, freshman lawmakers in the Grand National Party compare the current administration to Pol Pot’s regime, and call it “a leftist, anti-American, pro-North Korean government.” During the Assembly’s questioning of cabinet ministers, they make fun of the governing party’s “386” generation with some lame satire that was unintentionally laughable.
In past years, first-term lawmakers were criticized for leading actual physical brawls in the Assembly. But at this year’s opening session, the newly elected freshmen pledged a new form of politics. Instead of being at the forefront of political reform, however, they are turning the National Assembly into a mess. Instead of refreshing change, they are bringing grief and disappointment.
If they think that aberrant speeches and behavior will win them prominence, it is a misjudgment on their part. They are learning politics the wrong way. They will never grow into political leadership.
It is the duty of the first-term legislators to maintain the dignity appropriate to representatives of the people, and to respect the legislative order.