Lawmakers have finally finished putting together parliamentary committees, which means the National Assembly is now set to get back to work.
Being of the mind that if lawmakers are engaging in extra-parliamentary nonsense, they can’t screw up the country through wrong-headed legislation (or, in other words, the less “work” the government is doing, the better), I’m not entirely sure this is good news, even if the GNP initiative to adopt “no work, no pay” rules for absent lawmakers is heartening.
Nevertheless, the Grand National Party — encouraged by recent polls that suggest the conservatives have turned the corner on their candlelight demonstration doldrums while the main opposition party’s support continues to sink — are already talking smack, with floor leader Hong Joon-pyo — taking his cues from Newt Gingrich — declaring the coming of a “great conservative reform” that will set straight a decade of leftist misrule.
Good luck with that.
The generally left-wing Seoul Shinmun takes a look at some of the topics Korea’s elected lawmakers will be discussing:
- National identity: Conservatives want to correct what they view as the “lost decade” of left-wing rule, with tax cuts, deregulation and privatization at the top of their agenda. They are also pushing legislation that would, at least in the Seoul Shinmun’s view, strengthen the role of politicians over public broadcasting and allow newspapers to own broadcasters and visa versa.
- Media Control: Expect a lot of fighting about the sacking and replacement of former Hankyoreh editor Jung Yeon-joo as president of KBS, the naming of a new president for Yonhap, and the privatization of MBC. This could get very, very messy, and frankly, as much as I dislike public broadcasting in theory and KBS and MBC in practice, the way the Lee Myung-bak administration is handling this issue makes me very uncomfortable.
- Lobbying Scandals: It wouldn’t be Korean politics without some lobbying scandals, including one with a cousin of the First Lady and another one involving a GNP advisor and military procurements. In theory, these could blow up big, but if LMB could survive the BBK scandal, I figure he’ll have no problem with these.
- Arresting Moon Kook-hyun: The GNP wants to take a parliamentary vote on whether to allow the arrest of minor opposition party leader Moon Kook-hyun (who, I should say, I kind of like), a move the opposition calls an act of political retaliation aimed to diminish the ruling party’s own corruption issues. The GNP, however, wants to leave it up to the consciences of individual lawmakers… which is kinda of funny to those who remember how the GNP has voted before in matters such as these.
6 Comments
Arresting Moon Kook-hyun is a low, dirty trick and perhaps it suggests that Han-nara is stooping to low tricks like this because he is one of the very few credible candidates who is not GNP.
“No work no pay” is an excellent idea and the U.S. Congress should have the same rule.
The Yonhap president is not directly named by the president but elected by Yonhap employees and their union, I believe. It’s the threat of cutting off gov’t funding that keeps it in line with whoever is in the Blue House.
What is Moon charged with? I don’t know the background to that story.
I would support “no work, no pay” PLUS any move to institute some sort of penalty for disrupting the process of the Congress (ie. fighting, stealing the gavel so they can’t open and close votes or procedures, barricading the doors to the Congress so votes can’t be taken, etc). And maybe a penalty for missing a certain percentage of votes (% TBD)
That goes double for the US… time to stop with the filibuster bullshit and get on with things.
On the them of the last commenter, lets just put a big fan in the National Assembly and close all the doors on them.
“theme”
Ooh, good one.
“You guys better hurry up and get those bills passed before the fan sucks out all the air in there and you die. Let’s go people, time’s a wasting. Tick Tock Tick Tock.”