Ruling and Opposition Parties Fail Again in Committee Formation Talks... Ruling Party: "Opposition Demands Preconditions" vs Opposition: "Ruling Party Makes New Proposal"

March 21st Meeting of Senior Party Floor Leaders
Jin Seong-jun Leaves Seat, Meeting Suspended

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Jun-yi] As the ruling and opposition parties continue their tug-of-war over the organization of the National Assembly, discord arose once again during a meeting between the chief deputy floor leaders on the 21st. The ruling party claims that the opposition is demanding preconditions such as participation in the Special Committee on Criminal Procedure Reform and withdrawal of the Constitutional Court's jurisdictional dispute petition, while the opposition counters that the ruling party "made a new proposal."

On this day, the chief deputy floor leaders of both parties met at the National Assembly to discuss the organization of the second half of the National Assembly. However, after about 20 minutes of meeting, Jin Seong-jun, the chief deputy floor leader of the Democratic Party of Korea, left first, ending the meeting.

Jin told reporters, "I have nothing more to say," adding, "We met today hoping that further discussions could narrow the gap, but the People Power Party's position has not changed at all. Rather, today they made a new proposal and expressed a much more regressive stance, so I have nothing more to say at length."

On the other hand, Song Eon-seok, chief deputy floor leader of the People Power Party, denied making any new proposal. Song said, "We kept discussing the same thing, emphasizing that 'preconditions are even more important,' and during the conversation about how this deviates from the essence, when we asked, 'If People Power Party talks about this important part, would the Democratic Party accept it?' it seems that was expressed as a new proposal."

He added, "Currently, the Democratic Party has brought up many preconditions unrelated to the organization of the National Assembly. Since preconditions keep being added one by one at every meeting, we mainly said we want to focus only on the organization. We also suggested creating a separate forum to discuss preconditions unrelated to the organization."

Meanwhile, Park Hyung-soo, spokesperson for the People Power Party floor, said in a statement, "The Democratic Party insists on 'electing the Speaker of the National Assembly first,' but if the Speaker is elected first, it is obvious that a Speaker from the Democratic Party will attempt to unilaterally organize the standing committees," adding, "We cannot allow this, so we propose electing the Speaker and the standing committee chairs simultaneously."

Park also said, "Furthermore, the Democratic Party is linking issues unrelated to the organization, such as the People Power Party's participation in the Special Committee on Criminal Procedure Reform and withdrawal of the Constitutional Court's jurisdictional dispute petition regarding the 'complete prosecution reform' bill, to the organization negotiations," adding, "Attempts to forcibly link issues unrelated to the organization to the organization negotiations are merely party interests. Bringing these into the 'organization negotiations' is unreasonable."

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