GNPs Park elected new parliamentary speaker

Park Hee-tae, a six-term lawmaker of the ruling Grand National Party (GNP), was elected Tuesday to lead a National Assembly confronted with piles of contentious political issues to settle over the next two years.

Park, 72, a former party chairman, will succeed Kim Hyong-o, whose two-year term expired late last month.

The parliament also chose Chung Ui-hwa, a four-term lawmaker of the GNP, and Hong Jae-hyong, a three-term lawmaker of the main opposition Democratic Party (DP), as vice speakers.

The post of National Assembly speaker typically goes to the majority party, with the ruling and main opposition parties sharing the two posts of vice speakership.

The GNP has 169 seats in the 299-member legislature, and the DP has 84.

In the balloting held during a plenary session, Park won 236 of the 249 votes cast.

Born in Namhae, South Gyeongsang Province, Park, a prosecutor-turned-legislator, has been elected six consecutive times since 1988.

He was at the top of the list for parliamentary speaker candidacy when the GNP regained power in 2008 after 10 years of liberal rule, but was sidelined after failing to get the party nomination to run in the April 2008 general election. But he returned as party chairman at the GNP's national convention in July 2008 and to the parliament by winning a by-election in October 2009.

Chung was a neurosurgeon before beginning his political career as a lawmaker in 1996. He has since been elected four consecutive times in Busan.

Hong had served as the finance minister in the mid 1990s before being elected to the National Assembly, first in 2000 from his hometown city of Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province.