Assembly breaks impasse to elect speaker

Politics

Published: 04 Jul. 2022, 18:14

Assembly breaks impasse to elect speaker

Five-term lawmaker Kim Jin-pyo of the Democratic Party addresses the National Assembly after being elected speaker on Monday. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]

Five-term lawmaker Kim Jin-pyo of the liberal Democratic Party (DP) was elected National Assembly speaker Monday, after the two main political parties reached a compromise to restart the parliament after 36 days of deadlock.

Kim, who will serve in the post until May 2024, was elected with 255 votes out of 275 lawmakers present.

Four-time DP lawmaker Kim Young-joo and five-time lawmaker Chung Jin-suk of the conservative People Power Party (PPP) were elected deputy speakers.

Their election at the beginning of an extraordinary session of the National Assembly came after the DP and PPP reached a tentative compromise to break a prolonged impasse over parliamentary committee appointments.

Using its 170-seat majority in the 299-seat legislature, the DP filed a request on Tuesday to open an extraordinary parliamentary session to force the PPP to make concessions in the stalled committee talks — essentially threatening to unilaterally appoint the speaker and deputy speakers if the PPP refused.

While the speaker position is customarily taken by the party with the largest number of seats in the National Assembly, elections for the post as well as the deputy speaker positions are normally held after the major parties reach a consensus, which was also imperiled by the impasse.

Due to the wrangling, the National Assembly had not met since May 29, when the first half of the 21st Assembly concluded.

The breakthrough came just hours before the DP planned to convene an all-party session to select the speaker and deputy speakers on its own. The PPP’s floor leader Kweon Seong-dong offered to cooperate in the election of the National Assembly speaker and deputy speakers on condition that the DP promised to select the chairmen of parliamentary committees based on bipartisan agreement.

“We offered an open-minded concession because normalizing operations of the National Assembly is in the interest of the people, and the ruling and opposition parties need to put their heads together to address difficult livelihood issues,” Kweon told reporters.

The PPP had rejected the DP’s earlier effort to end the impasse by offering the chairmanship of the Legislation and Judiciary committee in exchange for the PPP’s cooperation in creating a special committee on judicial reform.
The judiciary committee is a key body within the National Assembly because it has the power to approve bills for a final floor vote.

That proposal was rejected by the PPP because the purpose of the special committee is to completely abolish the state prosecution service’s remaining investigative powers, which both the government and the PPP oppose.

Born in 1947, Kim Jin-pyo is the oldest sitting lawmaker in the 21st Assembly and a prominent moderate politician.

He served twice as a deputy prime minister under President Roh Moo-hyun prior to winning a seat in the 17th National Assembly in 2004, and has been re-elected in every parliamentary election since.

In his acceptance speech, Kim called on the parties to quickly reach an agreement on the parliamentary committees so that the legislature could focus on economic issues.

“The current situation is too dire to leave solely in the hands of the government,” he said. “We must create a special parliamentary committee to swiftly respond to the economic crisis and the threat to people’s livelihoods.”

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