By Park Song-wu
Staff Reporter

In the first show of the ruling Uri Party’s majority status in the National Assembly, Rep. Lee Hai-chan, President Roh Moo-hyun’s political ally, on Tuesday received a resounding stamp of approval on his nomination as prime minister.
Out of 289 lawmakers participating in the vote on Lee’s nomination bill, 200 voted in favor, more than the simple majority of 150 in the 299-member Assembly. Eighty-four voted against, with five invalid. Uri has 152 affiliated lawmakers.

Lee is expected to take up the role of Roh’s top liaison officer with the Assembly and will push Roh’s reform agenda in the Assembly now under the control of the ruling party. Sources already said that Roh will not appoint a senior secretary for political affairs with Lee taking its role as the head of the Cabinet.

With the Assembly confirmation, Lee filled in the post of the prime minister, which had been left vacant since the departure of his predecessor Goh Kun who resigned May 25.

The 52-year-old became the fourth prime minister who successfully passed the confirmation hearing and the floor vote since the unicameral Assembly introduced an endorsement system for the No. 2 job in the administration in 2000.

The hearing has been considered infamous for its efforts to find flaws in candidates’ morality. As a result, two of the five candidates tapped by ex-president Kim Dae-jung failed to win the floor’s vote.

The premiership has been considered a nominal post under the strong presidential system, but Roh had promised to change the tradition, giving his first aide much bigger authorities in government affairs.

Prior to the floor vote, the Uri Party held a caucus and decided to vote in favor of Lee, saying the two-day confirmation hearing last week could not find grave faults in Lee as a prime minister.

The leadership of the opposition Grand National Party (GNP), which had already decided to allow its lawmakers to make up their mind individually, did not openly object to Lee’s rise to the premiership either.

Some of the GNP legislators, however, urged his colleagues to vote against Lee, arguing that the education policies which Lee designed under the Kim government were the cause of the current crisis in public education, but their voice failed to get support from within the conservative party.

The democracy-activist-turned politician served as education minister from 1998 to 2000. At the time, criticism against Lee reached a peak when he reduced the retirement age of teachers from 65 to 62.

Many of the 10 lawmakers of the left-leaning Democratic Labor Party (DLP) were guessed to have voted against Lee’s endorsement due to his support for the government’s plan for an additional troop dispatch to Iraq.

Roh initially tapped Kim Hyuck-kyu, former governor of South Kyongsang Province, but later dropped the idea largely due to strong objections from the GNP.

Kim defected from the opposition party prior to the April 15 general elections and joined the Uri Party, making the GNP openly denounce Kim a ``traitor,’’ alleging he moved to the ruling camp in return for the post of prime minister.

im@koreatimes.co.kr