Former finance minister Kim Jin-pyo nominated to be speaker

North Korea

Published: 24 May. 2022, 17:40

Former finance minister Kim Jin-pyo nominated to be speaker

Five-term Democratic Party lawmaker Kim Jin-pyo delivers his comments after the party's lawmakers nominated him to serve as the next speaker of the National Assembly at a party general meeting on Tuesday morning. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]

The liberal Democratic Party (DP) nominated five-term lawmaker Kim Jin-pyo, a former finance minister, as National Assembly speaker at a meeting of its lawmakers on Tuesday.

Kim is likely to assume the speakership as the DP holds a 167-seat super-majority in the 300-seat National Assembly.

The speaker position usually goes to the party with the most seats, while two deputy speaker seats are customarily divided between the majority party and the largest party in the opposition. The posts are filled by a secret ballot vote of lawmakers in the National Assembly.

The incumbent, veteran DP lawmaker Park Byeong-seug, is due to step down on May 29 at the end of his two-year term.

Kim beat out fellow five-term lawmakers Lee Sang-min and Cho Jeong-sik and four-term lawmaker Woo Sang-ho in the DP’s nomination contest, receiving 89 votes, more than half of the 166 votes. Woo came in second with 57 votes.

Kim is believed to be part of the DP’s more conservative faction.

A graduate of Seoul National University, Kim began his career as a civil servant in the National Tax Agency in 1974.

Prior to his first stint in the National Assembly between 2004 and 2014, Kim spent 30 years in the civil service, working on tax reform for the Finance Ministry.

One of Kim’s main projects during his time at the ministry was the creation of the real-name financial transactions system, passed into law in 1993, which forbade the use of fictitious names to open accounts and required financial institutions to check the identities of account owners.

He was also one of the brains behind the creation of a “real-name real estate system,” which implemented similar requirements for property transactions.

Following the election of Roh Moo-hyun as president in 2002, Roh chose Kim to serve as vice chair of his transition team before nominating him for the post of finance minister.

Kim served in that post from 2003 to 2004, when he resigned before successfully standing for election to represent the Gyeonggi Suwon constituency in the National Assembly. After winning that seat, he took up the post of education minister from 2005 to 2006.

Kim resigned his National Assembly seat to run as his party’s candidate in the Gyeonggi gubernatorial race, but ended up dropping out in favor of Rhyu Si-min, a fellow liberal.

Since 2016, Kim has represented the Gyeonggi Suwon E constituency in the National Assembly.

Four-term lawmaker Kim Young-joo, who served as labor minister under former President Moon Jae-in, was selected as the DP’s candidate for one of the deputy speaker positions.

The DP said it aims to call a vote at a plenary session of the National Assembly before Sunday, when Park steps down from the speakership.

BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]