[Editorial] So Long For Free Voting Like This?

The Congress selected the Speaker of the House yesterday, 38 days after it should have done. But it is far from what people expected of it. With a delay of so many days, the Congress betrayed people’s hope for the reform in the Congress by breaking their promise to select the Speaker in free voting. Vice-speakers were appointed along the party lines, and it is the same for selecting chairmen of committees, which is scheduled for today.

Of course, the Congress employed a “free voting-like” method in selecting Park Kwan-Yong of the Grand National Party (GNP) as Speaker. But it’s like blocking the sun with their hands. The GNP and the Millennium Democratic Party (MDP) had selected their own candidates prior to voting. Then the GNP and MDP waged a tug of war for its own candidate. It was a “party-voting.” Free voting means selecting someone, without any previously determined candidate, purely based on the number of ballots of the congressmen. But the two parties ignored this.

The new version of Act of Congress, which was amended early this year, mandates Speaker’s party-neutrality. He cannot retain any part membership. The neutrality clause was intended for fair operation of the Congress. Accordingly, the new Speaker has to waive his membership with the GNP. Practically, however, how could he keep neutral when he was made Speaker by the GNP’s sponsorship? People are worrying.

Moreover, this Congress in its latter term, will probably fall into a war room for the upcoming presidential election. Under these circumstances, partisanship in operation of the Congress will undoubtedly lead to swirling the Congress into a war of partisanship. Thus, the new Speaker should distance himself from all partisan matters. He should handle all matters only for the benefit of the country and the public. For those purposes, the Congress should focus itself on the people’s needs such as economy and minimize bipartisan hassling. That is the way to earn back the trust of the public, who lost its belief in the Congress.

We should come up with structural and systematic measures enabling the continuous operation of the Congress whatever might result from organizing divisions within the Congress. It might be one such way to mandate the selection of an acting speaker in advance. It should not happen again that the Congress remained closed at a time of a national crisis like the Yellow Sea Engagement.