Posted July. 25, 2000 09:33,
In his address on the occasion of the inauguration of the 16th National Assembly on June 5, President Kim Dae-Jung made it clear that he will firmly abide by the political principle to engage in dialogue and compromise with the opposition party, and to compete with it through policies. What he emphasized there was reiterate the spirit of agreement at the inter-party summit on April 24 for mutual co-existence between the ruling party and the opposition party. In addition, the Millennium Democratic Party whip assured his opposition counterpart that he will make every effort for an inter-party agreement, dialogue and compromise to resolve any pending political issues. He pledged that any failure in such effort will not, under any circumstances, prompt his party to have recourse to a railroaded, or a unilaterlly enforced, passage of a bill.
Hardly two months have elapsed since such assurances were given but they all turned out to be empty words. The MDP`s railroaded passage of the bill for the revision of the National Assembly Law (NAL) at the house steering committee on July 24 has a diresome consequence that can not be glossed over merely as an irregular and anomalous passage.
The gravity of the situation lies in the fact that the present ruling powers betrayed their own assurances and people`s trust in them. They made a fatally bad move to degrade our politics as a game for a political fraud and sham.
The bills for people`s everyday livelihood and welfare at times would inevitably require an urgent parliamentary action, but this was not such a case. Why was it so important and urgent to make the United Liberal Democrats (ULD) the Assembly`s negotiation group as to require such a railroading action and the abandoning of the inter-party political promises? The excuse can in no way be justified that the Grand National Party`s uncompromising attitude from the start and its opposition to the bill altogether dictated such a passage. The MDP must persuade the opposition party to agree that the required number of legislators to admit a `parliamentary negotiation group` in the National Assembly is needed for a satisfactory conduct of parliamentary affairs. That represents a principle of political conduct via dialogue and compromise. But, we hardly think that the MDP made sufficient efforts to persuade the GNP. On the contrary, the prevailing view is that the MDP was only eager to embrace the ULD in order to secure the numerical dominance in the Assembly over the GNP. The meeting between GNP leader Lee Hoi-Chang and ULD patriarch Kim Jong-Pil has prompted the MDP to resort to such a `lightning tactics` for the bill.
The widely suspected, secret agreement between Lee and Kim for a maneuver for the NAL revision must be clarified. Whether the rumor was intended to dilute the MDP`s disastrous parliamentary conduct or to lay the blame on the opposition party must fully be disclosed. Or, was there indeed a political, `backdoor dealing` between Lee and Kim in exchange for the revision? All the facts behind the rumor must fully be debunked so as to hold whichever the party responsible for the entire mishap politically and morally responsible.
The politics of fraud and slander will give a sense of profound frustration and defeat to the grass-roots who are thirsty for a new politics and a new era to come. It would also cause a fearful dissemination of political cynicism and indifference among people. The ruling powers must be afraid of its political consequences and coping with them.
So long as the ruling powers lose people`s trust in them due to their recourse to the politics of lie, the hopes for the first, ever, inter-Korean detente will also be lost. When insurmountable distrust overwhelms the domestic politics as to make it unstable, it is hardly possible to expect any success in its conduct of external affairs.
Though belated, the MDP should apologize for the railroaded passage of the bill for the NAL revision, and must declare it null and void. The MDP must take steps to negotiate again with the opposition party in order to recover the confidence it lost due to its degradation of politics as a game for a political lie. The barefaced politics of fraud and sham will only ruin the nation.