Lee Mulls Meeting With Opposition Leaders
By Lee Tae-hoon
Staff Reporter
President Lee Myung-bak is considering holding a meeting with leaders of the governing and opposition parties in the near future to solicit their support for key administrative policies, government sources said Sunday.
Lee is worried that political wrangling, which was rampant in the National Assembly last year, may intensify over his reversal of the previous administration's plan to build the Sejong administrative city in the Chungcheong region.
The government is scheduled to announce its alternative plan on Jan. 11.
"President Lee is reviewing whether to propose a meeting to opposition party leaders sometime this month," a Cheong Wa Dae official said.
"Lee has expressed his wish to use the opportunity to thaw the icy relations between the ruling and opposition parties and explain the major policy directions of his administration for 2010."
President Lee may propose the top-level talks as early as this morning during his New Year's address or upon the announcement of the plan to revise the Sejong project, the sources said.
On Dec. 16, Chung Mong-joon, chairman of the governing Grand National Party (GNP), proposed having a three-way meeting with President Lee and Chung Sye-kyun, chairman of the main opposition Democratic Party (DP), to resolve the parliamentary impasse over the administration's four-river refurbishment plan.
However, the GNP chairman failed to arrange the meeting because both senior officials of his party and Cheong Wa Dae demanded excluding the sensitive issue of the multi-billion-dollar four-river project from the agenda of the talks.
Analysts are skeptical over whether the DP leader will welcome the President's proposal, given that Cheong Wa Dae rejected his repeated demand for a meeting with President Lee over budget deliberations last year.
The DP is also at odds with the GNP for having railroaded the labor union bill and the state budget for 2010, despite its strong objections.
It remains to be seen whether President Lee's list of invitees will include Reps. Park Geun-hye, former GNP chairwoman, and Lee Hoi-chang, chairman of the Liberty Forward Party (LFP).
The ruling camp needs Park's support for the revision of the Sejoing City plan, under which nine ministries and four government agencies were planned to be relocated from Seoul to the Chungcheong area. Park leads the GNP's second-largest faction with some 60 lawmakers, about one-third of GNP legislators.
The administration is also under pressure to mend ties with the LFP as many of its lawmakers are based in the Chungcheong provinces and are against the President's plan to overhaul the Sejong project.
Some 51.3 percent of Koreans support President Lee' alternative plan to replace the previous administration's project, according to a survey released by the Hankook Ilbo, a sister paper of The Korea Times, late last week.
President Lee is also planning to invite all GNP lawmakers to Cheong Wa Dae early this month to seek support for the administration's 2010 projects, the sources said.