Hong Persuades Dissident Lawmakers to Join Impeachment Move

Both the ruling and opposition parties spent a busy day Tuesday holding a series of emergency meetings from early in the morning in connection with a motion to impeach President Roh Moo-hyun.

The Millennium Democratic Party (MDP), which led the impeachment motion, held a joint meeting of permanent representatives of the central committee and permanent representatives of the advisory committee from 9:00 a.m. until 1:30 p.m. on Tuesday. During the four and half hours of meeting, the representatives edited the text of the impeachment bill and deliberated strategies to guard against the assault that would come from lawmakers who do not support the bill.

“We do not need a president that does not abide by the constitution. The president is not capable of stabilizing the nation. Impeachment is the only solution to unite a completely torn apart country,” said MDP chairman Chough Soon-hyung during the meeting.

Lawmakers of the MDP also distributed stickers saying: ‘impeachment equals peace for the people,’ in front of the administration office of the National Assembly in a bid to create an atmosphere of impeachment. And some senior lawmakers, including Rep. Kim Kyung-jae, urged lawmakers who hesitated to put their signatures to the motion to join the impeachment move.

The Grand National Party (GNP) also held a series of meetings on Tuesday to deliberate ways to persuade its dissident lawmakers.

Hong Sa-duk, floor leader of the GNP, who was appointed at around 11:00 a.m. on Tuesday as the person to decide when to report the motion to the main floor, met 10 young lawmakers who are balking at the impeachment bid.

“The MDP will form a united battle line by persuading lawmakers who oppose the impeachment bill,” Hong said. “I urge GNP lawmakers to show a united and firm stance to the motion,” GNP chairman Choe Byung-yul said.

However, some young lawmakers denounced the impeachment, saying, “The majority of people are negative to the impeachment”

Analysts believe that the press conference of former GNP chairman Lee Hoi-chang and prosecutors’ announcement on illegal campaigning fund investigation results on Monday contributed greatly to creating an atmosphere for the leadership of the GNP to actively participate in the impeachment move.

The Uri Party, which was optimistic until early Tuesday because they believed the opposition parties would not collect enough signatures for an impeachment motion, was surprised to see the submission of an impeachment motion on Tuesday afternoon.

In particular, Chough, who said on Tuesday morning that “the Uri Party will not check an impeachment motion with physical force as enough signatures for an impeachment motion will not be collected anyway,” said on Tuesday afternoon that “politicians who pursue true democracy must all unite to fight against conspiracies of anti-democratic politicians to overthrow the government.”

The Uri Party has reportedly decided to use physical force to deter the impeachment bill’s passing the main session.

Jong-Koo Yoon Seung-Heon Lee jkmas@donga.com ddr@donga.com