Democratic Party likely to push through floor vote Tuesday without hearing report
Opposition calls nominee unfit after contentious two-day confirmation hearing last week
The Democratic Party of Korea is strongly considering pushing through a confirmation vote for prime minister nominee Han Sung-sook at a National Assembly plenary session as early as Tuesday, bypassing the adoption of a hearing report amid a sharp divide between the ruling and opposition parties.
A full committee meeting of the special confirmation hearing panel, scheduled for Monday, was effectively canceled, according to political sources. The committee had intended to discuss whether to adopt the hearing report, but the People Power Party has refused to budge from its position that Han is "unfit to serve as prime minister."
The Democratic Party, concluding that the PPP's hardline stance makes adoption of the report unlikely, has decided to bring the confirmation motion directly to a plenary floor vote, sources said.
Rep. Kim Han-gyu of the Democratic Party, the ruling party's floor manager on the special committee, said on Facebook that even if the PPP's party line amounted to "opposition for opposition's sake," the government could not afford to leave a leadership vacuum. "We will complete the prime minister confirmation process as quickly as possible," he said.
PPP floor manager Rep. Kang Seung-gyu, however, said Monday that the party's position against adopting the report remained unchanged.
Kang also wrote on Facebook that Han appeared to be "less a prime minister who conveys the public's sentiment to the president, and more one who conveys President Lee Jae-myung's intentions to the public." He said the party had concluded Han "lacks the public trust required of a prime minister and is unfit for the role."
Han's confirmation hearing ran over two days, June 25 and 26, at the National Assembly. The PPP sharply criticized her record of owning multiple homes and the manner in which she disposed of them, as well as allegations of violating farmland laws at a property in Yangpyeong and illegal building extensions at a structure in Jongno, calling them grounds for disqualification.
The Democratic Party rebuffed those attacks, saying the PPP was "wasting confirmation hearing time with leaps of logic and speculation that even an elementary school student would not make."
Meanwhile, the confirmation of Prime Minister Kim Min-seok last year also passed at a National Assembly plenary session on July 3 without a hearing report, driven by the Democratic Party and allied pro-government lawmakers. Confirmation of a prime minister requires the attendance of a majority of all Assembly members and approval by a majority of those present. The Democratic Party currently holds 161 seats, enough to pass the motion on its own.
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