United Future Party Reaffirms Joo Ho-young at Lawmakers' Meeting: "Will Not Submit Standing Committee List Immediately"

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy reporters Lee Ji-eun and Lim Chun-han] On the 25th, the United Future Party held a party caucus meeting and reaffirmed their confidence in Floor Leader Joo Ho-young, who had expressed his intention to resign but later returned. Regarding the formation of committees, they firmly decided not to submit the list of standing committees immediately and to determine it based on the attitude of the Democratic Party of Korea.

At the party caucus held in the main building of the National Assembly that morning, the United Future Party resolved to reaffirm Floor Leader Joo with applause.

Floor Leader Joo said, "I have many shortcomings in various ways, but I feel a heavy responsibility and am grateful for your reaffirmation," adding, "I thought it would be difficult to carry out the role of floor leader due to a sense of helplessness and responsibility for the destruction of parliamentary democracy, but many people were worried and urged me to take the lead in advancing the party together, so I came back."

Regarding the formation of committees, he emphasized the need to form a "unified front." He said, "I believe (the Democratic Party) will extend a hand, but we need to unite among ourselves and form a unified front," adding, "I don't know when a normal committee formation will happen, but in the meantime, we have provisionally assigned standing committees, and they are desperately requesting the assignment list. They will try to assign and elect, but that is absolutely not possible."

This implied that they would use the withholding of the standing committee list as a negotiation card with the ruling party. Just before the caucus, Floor Leader Joo also told reporters, "We will not submit (the standing committee list)" and "We will decide based on what they (the Democratic Party) do."

Regarding the supplementary budget (추경) review, he criticized, "The first supplementary budget is still incomplete, and this supplementary budget is unnecessary and wasteful," adding, "There are an enormous number of supplementary budgets that should have been included in the main budget, and they are telling the public as if 'it's urgent but we are not doing it.'"

He continued, "If you want to do a supplementary budget, it must go through a preliminary review by the standing committees, and if the preliminary review is not done, the Speaker sets the deadline for the preliminary review so that the Budget and Accounts Committee can review it," adding, "If all 12 standing committees are not formed, the review cannot proceed, so I understand the Democratic Party is also troubled and in a dilemma."

Floor Leader Joo said, "My position from the beginning was that they have enough seats to operate the National Assembly freely without the United Future Party and that they do not reflect your opinions, so I told them to try it that way," adding, "If they do so, we will follow the next steps accordingly, but as opposition lawmakers, we will not neglect our responsibilities. We have no intention of being obstinate."

Policy Committee Chairman Lee Jong-bae expressed gratitude for the reaffirmation, saying, "I will faithfully serve and fight more fiercely together with the lawmakers," adding, "We are preparing and pushing for a state audit, and we have analyzed the supplementary budget, which has many problems. We will announce them one by one."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.