DP passes no-confidence motion against interior minister

Politics

Published: 11 Dec. 2022, 17:25 Updated: 12 Dec. 2022, 19:59

DP passes no-confidence motion against interior minister

Lawmakers from the People Power Party (PPP) hold up placards to protest the Democratic Party's no-confidence motion against Interior Minister Lee Sang-min at the National Assembly in Yeouido, western Seoul on Sunday. [NEWS1]

The Democratic Party (DP)-controlled National Assembly passed a no-confidence motion against Interior Minister Lee Sang-min Sunday for negligence that led to the fatal crowd crush in Seoul on Oct. 29 that killed 158.

In response to the motion, People Power Party (PPP) floor leader Joo Ho-young announced the party would withdraw its support for a parliamentary probe into the disaster, which was established by bipartisan consensus on Nov. 24.

All seven PPP lawmakers assigned to the 18-member parliamentary investigation committee resigned Sunday, leaving behind nine DP and two independent lawmakers.

The no-confidence motion and the PPP’s withdrawal from the parliamentary probe highlight a deepening partisan divide over the response to the tragedy — and who should be blamed.

The DP’s no-confidence motion called for Lee to “take responsibility for abandoning his duties as the chief of the country’s disaster and safety management efforts, and for failing to protect the lives and safety of the people.”

The interior ministry is in charge of supervising the police and the fire agencies.

In its bill, the DP also argued that language used by Lee and members of President Yoon Suk-yeol’s administration showed that Lee was trying to avoid blame for the tragedy.

“Minister Lee hastily tried to minimize the nature and significance of the tragedy by referring to the [Itaewon] disaster as an ‘accident’ and victims as ‘the dead,’ and also focused on shirking his ministerial duties by making the excuse that there is no official response outlined in administrative manuals for a [mass gathering] event without an organizer,” the motion said.

The no-confidence motion, which required support from 150 out of 300 National Assembly members to pass, was approved by a 182 lawmakers out of 183 lawmakers present, including all 168 DP representatives in the National Assembly. One vote was declared invalid.

PPP lawmakers walk out from the National Assembly chamber before voting begins on the no-confidence motion against Interior Minister Lee. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]

The motion was boycotted by the PPP. Its lawmakers walked out of the parliamentary chamber en masse before voting began.

The presidential office and the PPP have rejected calls for Lee’s dismissal, saying that the interior minister should not be held responsible for the tragedy, especially while the investigation set up by the National Assembly and a criminal investigation by the police are ongoing.

President Yoon Suk-yeol is expected to reject the no-confidence motion, which could lead to more confrontation between the DP and the Yoon administration.

The DP has threatened to impeach Interior Minister Lee if the president does not sack him.

Sunday’s no-confidence motion was the second passed by the National Assembly against a member of Yoon’s Cabinet.

In late September, the DP demanded the dismissal of Foreign Minister Park Jin over a series of gaffes that occurred during the president’s trips to Britain and the United States earlier that month.

Yoon rejected that call for Park's dismissal.

An official at the presidential office told the JoongAng Ilbo Sunday that the motion did not change Yoon’s position that the no-confidence motion is counterproductive to ongoing efforts to clarify the causes of the deadly crowd crush in Itaewon.

The first arrests in the case were made on Dec. 5, when the Seoul Western District Court approved warrants against two senior police intelligence officers accused of ordering the deletion of an internal intelligence report warning of a possible crowd surge in Itaewon on Oct. 29.

Park Sung-min, a former senior intelligence officer at the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency, is suspected of ordering the report to be deleted from a group chat with intelligence officers.

Kim Jin-ho, a former intelligence officer at the Yongsan Police Precinct, is suspected of ordering a subordinate to delete the report from records on Park’s order.

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