Former National Assembly vice speaker Kim Young-bae, who was elected six times as a lawmaker, died of a chronic illness on Saturday. He was 81.

He is known to have suffered from cholangiocarcinoma, a cancer of the bile ducts.

Kim was a Yonhap News Agency reporter before being first elected as a lawmaker in 1979 for the New Democratic Party. He was then reelected to the National Assembly successively in 1985, 1988, 1992, 1996 and 2000.

He became the first chairman of the National Assembly labor committee in 1988, joined the Supreme Council of the Democratic Party in 1992 and was vice chairman of the National Congress for New Politics in 1995.

He was named vice speaker of the National Assembly in 1996. In 2002, he headed the campaign of the Millennium Democratic Party presidential candidate Roh Moo-hyun, who won the election.

After retiring from politics, he chaired a scholarship foundation.

By Chun Sung-woo (swchun@heraldcorp.com)