By Lee Jin-woo
Staff Reporter


The ruling Uri Party and minor opposition parties plan to pass the budget for next year and other key pending bills at a plenary session of the National Assembly today, Uri Party officials said Thursday.

An ad hoc Assembly sub-panel has sliced 900 billion won ($875 million) from the government’s initial budget of 144.8 trillion won.

Other key bills awaiting parliamentary approval include anti-real estate speculation measures and a motion to extend the deployment of South Korean troops stationed in Iraq.

After Huh Joon-young, commissioner-general of the Korean National Police Agency, tendered his resignation, the minor opposition Democratic Labor Party (DLP), which has refused to cooperate with the ruling camp, decided to attend the Assembly session.

The police chief offered to resign to take responsibility for the deaths of two farmers who were fatally injured by riot police during a rally in Seoul last month.

The governing party has warned the largest opposition Grand National Party (GNP) that it will pass the bills with support from other opposition parties if the GNP continues to refuse to return to the Assembly.

On Wednesday, Democratic Party floor leader Lee Nak-yon agreed with his ruling party counterpart, Chung Sye-kyun, to cooperate over the bills in return for the governing party’s promise to designate the snow-hit southwestern regions as a special disaster zone.

The two parties hold a total of 155 seats _ the ruling party has 144 seats and the DP 11 _ more than half of the 299 seats in the legislature required to hold a plenary session.

But the governing party needs to win support from the DLP with nine seats to blunt criticism of the passage of the budget at the crippled Assembly.

The GNP renewed its strong determination not to comply with the ruling party’s request, continuing to protest the controversial revision of the private school law.

Rep. Kang Jae-sup, floor leader of the GNP, made it clear that he would step down from his post today in a telephone interview with a local news agency. Kang first tendered his resignation to take responsibility for the party’s failure to thwart the passage of the bill on Dec. 9.

The revision requires the nation’s private schools to elect one fourth of their boards of directors from among faculty members and parents.

things@koreatimes.co.kr