'Democrats sent a list with no proposal': PPP floor leader
Party to push motion to dismiss Defense Minister An as party line
The People Power Party on Monday sharply pushed back against the Democratic Party of Korea's approach to negotiations over the formation of the National Assembly's standing committee structure, calling it "extortion, not negotiation." The PPP also argued that the chairmanship of the Legislation and Judiciary Committee should go to the largest opposition party, criticizing the Democratic Party's plan for distributing committee chairmanships.
PPP floor leader Jeong Jeom-sik told a general assembly of party lawmakers that afternoon that National Assembly Speaker Jo Jeong-sik and the Democratic Party had drawn up a list of standing committee assignments and handed it to the PPP without making any proposal or presenting any negotiating position. "They are not negotiating — they are extorting," Jeong said. "This is an arrogant ruling force that does not recognize the opposition as a partner in governance."
Jeong went on to question how the Democratic Party could have the nerve to claim the chairmanship of the Legislation and Judiciary Committee again. "They draft bills any way they please, amend them on the floor, pass legislation at the judiciary committee chair's discretion, and handpick witnesses," he said. "Even an elementary school student council meeting would not be run the way they ran the Legislation and Judiciary Committee and the Science and Technology Committee."
Before the closed-door assembly, PPP lawmakers held a rally in the National Assembly's Rotunda Hall, holding placards reading "Stop the Democratic Party's attempt to monopolize standing committee posts" and denouncing the Democratic Party's push to force through the committee structure.
Lawmaker Na Kyung-won said dividing the Assembly speakership and the chairmanship of the Legislation and Judiciary Committee between the ruling and largest opposition parties is the cornerstone of parliamentary democracy. "If you want to reduce the opposition to a rubber stamp for dictatorship, you might as well dissolve the National Assembly," she said. Na also argued that the speaker's forced assignment of standing committees amounted to nothing more than securing the judiciary committee chairmanship to get President Lee Jae Myung's indictment dropped. "What the speaker is doing now is not a declaration of abandoning party affiliation — it is a declaration of being a hardline party loyalist," she said.
Lawmaker Park Hyeong-su said the convention of splitting the Assembly speakership and the judiciary committee chairmanship between the first and second parties took hold from the 17th National Assembly, during the presidency of Kim Dae-jung. "It was in keeping with the constitutional principle of ensuring checks and balances in the legislature," he said. "The Democratic Party constantly says it carries on the spirit of Kim Dae-jung — so how can it keep trying to break this democratic principle?"
Meanwhile, the PPP decided to submit a motion to dismiss Defense Minister An Gyu-baek as a party-line measure as soon as the committee formation process is concluded, following a public petition calling for his impeachment that surpassed 200,000 signatures.
Jeong said the party would also carefully examine, through the National Defense Committee, whether Minister An's conduct constitutes grounds for impeachment and whether he has violated the Constitution or relevant laws, once the committee structure is finalized.
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