The curtain has been raised on the 19th National Assembly. The public has high expectations for the new parliament as the legislative procedure for contentious bills has been changed to promote inter-party compromise and prevent unsavory brawls among lawmakers.
Yet the behavior of the ruling Saenuri Party and the main opposition Democratic United Party apparently has not changed much. They are reenacting the familiar haggling over the distribution of the chairmanships of the Assembly’s 18 standing committees.
Under the law on parliamentary operations, the new parliament is required to hold its first session and elect its new leadership on June 5, the seventh day after its term started. And it is expected to complete the formation of the standing committees within three days from then.
As things stand now, however, the inaugural session is unlikely to be held on schedule. In fact, since the 13th Assembly, political parties have not been able to meet the stipulated opening date. For instance, it took the 18th Assembly 42 days to convene the opening session and 88 days to elect the heads of the committees.
The Saenuri and DUP leaders should wrap up the political horse trading and get ready for action as many important national issues are waiting to be addressed.
On Wednesday, the ruling party submitted a dozen priority bills to the Assembly in a gesture intended to show that it was serious about following up on its election pledges. It vowed to pass the bills as soon as the new parliament goes into operation.
The party called the bills “ladders of hope,” saying they were designed to help disadvantaged people climb out of poverty and despair. The bills are designed to significantly reduce discrimination against non-regular workers and protect small and medium-sized manufacturers and merchants from large corporations.
The DUP has its own set of priority bills, mostly intended to translate its “3 plus 3” welfare pledges ― free school lunch, free health care, free child care plus half-priced tuition, employment assistance and housing support.
The bills pushed by the two parties are all well-intended. But one problem is that if implemented, they would impose a significant financial burden on the government and private companies. For instance, the DUP’s bill on half-priced tuition calls for ratcheting up the government’s financial support for universities.
The Saenuri Party’s plan to legislate protection of fixed-term workers, dispatched employees and workers hired by in-house subcontractors will sharply increase the labor costs of many corporations and restrict their ability to restructure and maintain flexible workforces.
If the Korean economy were in a strong upswing, we would be less concerned about the political parties being overzealous to put their election promises into practice to win votes in the December presidential election.
Yet the economy has been losing momentum amid the worsening eurozone crisis and the slowing Chinese economy. Foreign and domestic research institutions continue to lower the nation’s growth estimates for this year.
One unmistakable sign that the economy is losing steam is the lackluster performance of exports, the nation’s most powerful growth engine. During the first four months of the year, Korea’s exports grew a mere 0.9 percent compared with the same period a year earlier.
The prospects for the second half of the year are even worse, as the eurozone debacle is threatening to push the global economy into the worst crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
In a word, now is not the time for the political parties to force the government to increase unnecessary spending or put extra burden on corporations. They should instead focus on helping the government boost the sagging economy and urge companies to prepare for the storm that might come their way.
There is one area where the political parties should take bold moves ― abolishing unwarranted privileges for lawmakers. One thing they should make their first order of the day when the Assembly opens is to scrap the lifetime pension for parliamentarians.
The privilege is just outrageous, as it entitles a lawmaker to a lifetime pension of 1.2 million won a month upon turning 65. A legislator who serves as a member of parliament even a single day can get the benefit, while an ordinary man has to pay 300,000 won a month over 30 years to qualify for the same amount.
