Inter-party standoff

The National Assembly was crippled for a second consecutive day July 25 by a heated inter-party confrontation over the ruling camp`s railroading of a revision to the National Assembly Law.

Lawmakers of the main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) occupied the residences of Assembly Speaker Lee Man-Sop of the ruling Millennium Democratic Party (MDP) and Vice Speaker Kim Chong-Ho of the MDP`s coalition partner, the United Liberal Democrats, preventing them from leaving their homes to preside over the parliamentary session.

GNP president Lee Hoi-Chang also held an emergency press conference to demand that President Kim Dae-Jung, concurrent MDP head, declare the passage of the revision bill at the Assembly Steering Committee July 24 null and void and sincerely apologize to the people for the mishap.

If President Kim, who is currently on vacation at Chongnam-dae, refuses to comply with the GNP request, the party will boycott all parliamentary operations and mobilize all available resources to expose the "falsehoods and conspiracies" of the incumbent government, the GNP president declared.

Chong Wa Dae spokesman Park Joon-Young said, however, that it was not appropriate for the opposition leader to censure the President for the incident that took place at the Assembly.

Earlier, the GNP leadership rushed its lawmakers to Speaker Lee`s official residence in Hannam-dong and Vice Speaker Kim`s house in Sokyo-dong to prevent the opening of the Assembly plenary session.

MDP chairman Suh Young-Hoon, meanwhile, visited the speaker at his residence and agreed to form an ad hoc inter-party committee to deal with the revision bill. His move raised hopes that the rival camps would make headway and break the current parliamentary deadlock.