Tongueslip May Hinder Passage of Budget Plan
By Kim Sue-young
Staff Reporter
Political parties will have difficulty passing the government's budget plan for next year by Dec. 12, as the minor opposition Liberty Forward Party (LFP) is refusing to cooperate due to an ``inappropriate definition'' of itself.
The party urged the main opposition Democratic Party (DP) to apologize for remarks describing the smaller party as the ``second troops of the governing Grand National Party (GNP).''
The DP and GNP tentatively agreed last Friday to pass the budget bill by Dec. 12 after missing the legal deadline of Dec. 2.
``If the DP does not apologize, we will not agree on the passage of the bill,'' LFP spokeswoman Park Sun-young said.
The largest opposition party rebuked the LFP for its political flip-flop and taking sides with the ruling camp, claiming the party has to face the reality of being called a Siamese twin or the second troops of the GNP.
The GNP also pressed the DP to offer an apology in a bid to smoothly pass the 2009 budget plan, saying that Assembly Speaker Kim Hyong-o may invoke his power to convene an Assembly session to approve the bill.
``We expect the DP to express regret in any form and then we will have no difficulty announcing the bipartisan agreement on the bill,'' said GNP spokesman Kim Chung-kwon. ``If they don't reach an agreement, the speaker will unilaterally convene a session to pass the bill.''
GNP floor leader Hong Joon-pyo told reporters Sunday that his party and opposition parties decided to convene an extra parliamentary session Wednesday to deal with the budget bill and other pending issues.
``After we deal with the bill on revenues and expenditures, we will pass other major issues during the session, which ends Jan. 10,'' he said.
The budget bill has been dogged by a partisan dispute.
The main opposition refused to attend the budget review session, calling for revising proposed tax cuts and expenditures.
It claimed that the budget was made based on the rough assumption that the economy would grow by 4 percent, far above analysts' estimate of 2 percent.