[Editorial] Leave The Scandal Of President’s Aides to the Special Investigation and Care for People’s Livelihoods.

Leave the scandal of president’s aides to the special investigation and care for the people’s livelihoods.

As the four parties, including the ruling and opposition parties, agreed to reconsider the special investigation bill into the corruption of President Roh Moo-hyun’s aides, accepting the president’s request, it seems that Parliament will be normalized. It has been 10 days since Parliament stopped operations due to the president’s rejection of the special investigation bill and the Grand National Party’s (GNP) refusal to attend Parliament. The last scheduled meeting of the regular session of Parliament was wasted by the unreasonable adherence to politics by both the president and the GNP. This was useless for everyone, and now President Roh and GNP Chairman Choe Byung-yul should reflect sincerely on who will compensate the public for its loss.

From now on, both the ruling and opposition parties should devote themselves to addressing state affairs and people’s livelihoods. They should examine the draft budget for next year, working through the night if necessary, to reduce redundant expenditures to the last penny. Parliament, using the excuse that time is short, should not keep its eyes closed to the too-generous budget for the next election or the expenditures for the civil petitions supporting each lawmaker’s local constituencies. Instead they should present solutions people can sympathize with, on such issues as troop dispatch to Iraq, the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Chile and the crisis in Buan.

Although it is late, there has been a ray of hope in the political situation. As the special investigation takes charge of the scandal involving the president’s aides, and the prosecutors address the use of illegal campaign funds in last year’s presidential election, politicians should no longer dispute these issues. The public will not be forgiving if the parties spend the rest of the regular session doing nothing but trying to open a special session to block legal actions against the representatives who have been involved in various corruption.

The prosecutors should not bring competence disputes about the special investigation to the Constitutional Court. As long as the president, who has personnel authority over the prosecutors, has announced that he will accept the investigation bill if it is again passed through Parliament, it is correct for the prosecutors to behave similarly. If the prosecutors turn back the political situation by applying for a provisional injunction against the independent counsel on the special investigation, state affairs and public welfare will disappear again.

Meanwhile, Chairman Choe should stop his hunger strike immediately. According to major opinion polls, a majority of people see Choe’s hunger strike negatively. Although Choe says that he will attend the reconsideration vote even, if necessary, in a wheelchair, there are doubts as to whether that sort of appearance is desirable. Chairman Choe must pay attention to the results of an opinion poll in which the Millennium Democratic Party, led by Chough Soon-hyung, had a higher approval rating than the GNP while he was on the hunger strike.