[Editorial] Where are the politics?

President Yoon Suk Yeol vetoed a controversial revision to the Grains Management Act railroaded by the majority Democratic Party (DP) holding 169 seats in the 300-member legislature. Our Constitution stipulates that a president can exercise veto power when he or she opposes bills passed through the National Assembly and demand lawmakers review them. President Yoon has used the rights for the first time since taking office in May last year. The revision to the grains act mandates the government purchase rice if its price falls 5 to 8 percent from the previous year or its output exceeds 3 to 5 percent of estimated demand.

Yoon criticized the revision for forcing the government to buy surplus rice irrespective of the market demand. “That’s a typical populist bill,” said the conservative president. If the vetoed bill is to become a law, it requires at least two thirds of the votes from more than half of all legislators present. The revision cannot pass as 115 members of the People Power Party (PPP) oppose it. The DP staged a rally before the presidential office in Yongsan to protest the veto.

But the fundamental responsibility for the veto should be borne by the DP as it pressed ahead with the bill based on its majority. The party says the revision can help rice farmers maintain their income, but agricultural experts say it will worsen the fiscal health of the government by encouraging overproduction of rice. They say the revision calls for more than 1 trillion won ($761 million) in extra budget per year. The DP’s push for the revision is certainly linked to the need to get more votes from farmers, their core support base, ahead of the April 10 parliamentary elections next year.

But the episode could just be the beginning. The DP already submitted to the plenary session of the Assembly a highly contentious revision to the Broadcast Act to help control public broadcasters. The party also prepares to railroad another volatile revision to deprive employers of their rights to defend against illegal strikes by combative unions. The muscle flexing by the supermajority party followed by a presidential veto will most likely continue at least until the next parliamentary election. A president’s veto power is aimed to prevent the legislature from abusing its rights to legislate. But a successive exercising of the presidential veto does not look normal, either.

The primary responsibility for the presidential exercise of veto falls on the majority party. But the PPP must also look back. President Yoon expressed regret about the DP “unilaterally passing the revision even without decent debates.” But he must wonder if the presidential office and his party really did their fair share in having the debates. The shameful development in our political circles over the presidential veto is a result of both the majority party’s domineering stance and a critical lack of cooperation between the two parties.