The first parliamentary audit of the 20th National Assembly fell into disarray on its first day Monday, as members of the ruling party boycotted the sessions while its leader began a hunger strike against the opposition’s push to sack a minister and the Assembly speaker‘s alleged breach of neutrality.

Originally scheduled to run for 20 days, the National Assembly’s standing committees either failed to hold the opening sessions or convened with all of the Saenuri Party lawmakers missing.
 

The partisan fight -- which escalated upon President Park Geun-hye’s veto of the opposition-led recommendation to dismiss the agriculture minister-designate over the weekend -- blew up into a full-fledged boycott and protests against Speaker Chung Sye-kyun.

Chung, a former member of the main opposition The Minjoo Party of Korea, had arranged for a midnight session Saturday that allowed the opposition to pass the dismissal motion of Agriculture Minister Kim Jae-soo without the attendance of the Saenuri Party.


The confrontation was aggravated on Monday upon the leaked voice recording of Chung in a closed-door conversation with a Minjoo Party lawmaker, during which he was heard suggesting the Saenuri Party offer a compromise on other controversial bills in exchange for the withdrawal of the dismissal motion.

He was reportedly referring to the legislations designed to extend the working period of parliamentary committee investigating Sewol sinking in 2014 and another committee targeting a right-wing civic group accused of inciting pro-government protest. Both have been blocked by the Saenuri Party.

The Saenuri Party vowed to continue to boycott the audit unless Chung resigns for passing the “illegitimate” motion they said lacked due details.

“We will never tolerate Chung, who violated parliamentary laws and worked as an advocate for opposition parties,” the Saenuri Party’s floor leader Rep. Chung Jin-suk told his fellow lawmakers at the party’s general assembly. “I mistook him for something that he was not.”

Saenuri Party leader Rep. Lee Jung-hyun said he will go on hunger strike until the speaker leaves his post. The party leadership decided to stage a sit-in at the National Assembly to add pressure against Chung and file a petition to the Constitutional Court to determine whether the speaker abused his power.

For his part, Chung said that his taped remarks were merely an “expression of regret” over legislative impasse and that he was playing a meditating role to offer the Saenuri Party a “legitimate reason” to break the deadlock.

As the standoff intensified, Chung proposed the opposition parties push back the parliamentary audit for a couple of days. During the meeting with leadership from the Minjoo Party and runner-up opposition People’s Party, he asked them to postpone the session until the Saenuri Party returns to the floor.

The People’s Party interim leader Rep. Park Jie-won agreed to the suggestion and said he would seek consensus among the fellow lawmakers. “We shouldn’t run the business unilaterally, as President Park Geun-hye has done so far,” Park was quoted as saying.

The Minjoo Party, on the other hand, rejected the proposal and pledged to hold the session as planned for the time being. “Though we cannot rule out all the scenario, we won’t change our plan,” said the Minjoo Party spokesman Rep. Ki Dong-min.

By Yeo Jun-suk (jasonyeo@heraldcorp.com)