The ruling and opposition parties normalized proceedings in the National Assembly Wednesday in accordance with an agreement they reached a day ago, but there is no guarantee that the parliament will operate smoothly from here onwards, given the heap of unresolved contentious issues.
Under the accord reached Tuesday night, the legislature will form a special committee to deal with reform of the National Intelligence Service.
The committee will be chaired by a lawmaker from the main opposition Democratic Party (DP) and its members will be drawn equally from the governing Saenuri Party and the DP. The committee will have its own legislative authority to study ways of strengthening control of the spy agency, which created a major problem by allegedly intervening in last year's presidential election.
The parties also agreed to set up another committee to draw up measures for political reform, including one aimed at retooling the local election system.
The bipartisan agreement is a belated but welcome move, given that both of them took a step backward to iron out a difficult compromise. But the parties hardly deserve credit, considering that they reached an agreement reluctantly under the simmering pressure of public resentment against the political establishment.
What's disturbing is that even the long-awaited agreement is fragile. True, the rival parties displayed wide discrepancies over the introduction of an independent counsel to investigate the NIS scandal. The agreement stipulates that the two sides will continue their discussion on the critical issue, but they each interpreted the new agreement to their advantage.
The Saenuri Party claims that it is just political rhetoric intended to appease the liberal opposition party's hard-liners, reacting negatively to an independent probe. On the contrary, the DP insists that the agreement serves as grounds for the parties to pursue the introduction of a special prosecutor.
The parties are also locked in a war of nerves over the direction of reforms for the powerful state intelligence unit. The governing party has ruled out the possibility of removing the agency's domestic division, saying that this would amount to dismantling the NIS completely, which is mainly tasked with investigating North Korean agents. But the DP says the role of the NIS should be curtailed in order to prevent it from abusing power.
What's needed now is for the two sides to exercise self-restraint so that the hard-won parliamentary normalization won't be lost due to the reemergence of further thorny issues. In fact, people's indignation with the parliament, which has not dealt with a single bill as well as the 2014 budget bill in recent months, is peaking to a new intensity.
The parties should try to resolve their differences through dialogue by being flexible, and their leaders must demonstrate leadership by suppressing resistance to change coming from inside the parties.
Under the accord reached Tuesday night, the legislature will form a special committee to deal with reform of the National Intelligence Service.
The committee will be chaired by a lawmaker from the main opposition Democratic Party (DP) and its members will be drawn equally from the governing Saenuri Party and the DP. The committee will have its own legislative authority to study ways of strengthening control of the spy agency, which created a major problem by allegedly intervening in last year's presidential election.
The parties also agreed to set up another committee to draw up measures for political reform, including one aimed at retooling the local election system.
The bipartisan agreement is a belated but welcome move, given that both of them took a step backward to iron out a difficult compromise. But the parties hardly deserve credit, considering that they reached an agreement reluctantly under the simmering pressure of public resentment against the political establishment.
What's disturbing is that even the long-awaited agreement is fragile. True, the rival parties displayed wide discrepancies over the introduction of an independent counsel to investigate the NIS scandal. The agreement stipulates that the two sides will continue their discussion on the critical issue, but they each interpreted the new agreement to their advantage.
The Saenuri Party claims that it is just political rhetoric intended to appease the liberal opposition party's hard-liners, reacting negatively to an independent probe. On the contrary, the DP insists that the agreement serves as grounds for the parties to pursue the introduction of a special prosecutor.
The parties are also locked in a war of nerves over the direction of reforms for the powerful state intelligence unit. The governing party has ruled out the possibility of removing the agency's domestic division, saying that this would amount to dismantling the NIS completely, which is mainly tasked with investigating North Korean agents. But the DP says the role of the NIS should be curtailed in order to prevent it from abusing power.
What's needed now is for the two sides to exercise self-restraint so that the hard-won parliamentary normalization won't be lost due to the reemergence of further thorny issues. In fact, people's indignation with the parliament, which has not dealt with a single bill as well as the 2014 budget bill in recent months, is peaking to a new intensity.
The parties should try to resolve their differences through dialogue by being flexible, and their leaders must demonstrate leadership by suppressing resistance to change coming from inside the parties.
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