The confirmations of key Cabinet members are expected to pick up momentum from next week as rival political parties have agreed on their hearing schedules, despite ongoing dissent against President Moon Jae-in’s supplementary budget bill.
The Liberty Korea Party, People’s Party and Bareun Party on Thursday agreed to resume the pending verification process for eight minister-level public servant nominees, which had been stalled for some time amid disputes over the state chief’s earlier personnel decisions.
(Yonhap)
First in line will be National Tax Service Director nominee Han Seung-hee who will face a hearing Monday, according to the parliamentary Strategy and Finance Committee.
Han’s session will be followed by that of Defense Minister nominee Song Young-moo and Agriculture Minister nominee Kim Yung-rok on Wednesday.
Kim Sang-kon, nominee for education minister and deputy prime minister for social affairs, and Unification Minister nominee Cho Myoung-gyon will have theirs Thursday.
The nominees for labor minister, gender equality minister, environment minister and ICT minister will also follow up.
Despite the resumption of hearings, however, Moon’s supplementary budget plan continued to remain in gridlock.
A morning meeting of the floor leaders from the top four political parties yielded little success, with the three opposition parties reiterating their dissent against the president’s fiscal plan focused on new jobs in the public sector.
“(The main opposition Liberty Korea Party’s boycott) is a clear insubordination to the presidential election result and the consequent change of government power,” Rep. Woo Won-shik, floor leader of the ruling liberal Democratic Party of Korea, said in a briefing after the thwarted meeting.
In an emotional tone and with teary eyes, the frustrated ruling party leader once again called for parliamentary cooperation in passing the budget bill which the ruling party saw as an indispensable way to alleviate the people’s economic burden and employment crisis.
The ruling party whip also blamed the runner-up opposition People’s Party for sitting back instead of offering support.
By Bae Hyun-jung (
tellme@heraldcorp.com)
