Jun Ji-hye, a reporter at the finance desk of The Korea Times, focuses primarily on economic policy and government agencies, mainly covering the Ministry of Finance and Economy, the Ministry of Budget and Planning, the National Tax Service and the Korea Customs Service. She previously covered financial authorities, including the Financial Services Commission and the Financial Supervisory Service, and earlier worked on the political, city and business desks, reporting on a wide range of issues.
Rival parties select new floor leaders
By Jun Ji-hye
Rep. Choi Kyung-hwan
By Jun Ji-hye
The ruling and opposition parties on Wednesday elected new floor leaders who will lead the parties in the National Assembly for a year.
The ruling Saenuri Party chose Rep. Choi Kyung-hwan as its new floor leader, while the main opposition Democratic Party (DP) elected third-term lawmaker Jun Byung-hun. Both Choi and Jun are described as tough figures in their respective parties.
The new leaders will take on the heavy responsibilities of operating in the Assembly as well as supporting the party in future elections including by-elections in October.
In the ruling party’s election Choi and Kim Gi-hyeon who stood for the chairmanship of the Supreme Council, decided to become running mates and earned 77 ballots from the total 146 party legislators in attendance.
“While preparing for this election, I listened to various opinions from many party members. They mostly want the ruling party capable of holding the government in check and exerting its political influence when necessary to support management of state affairs. I will sincerely fulfill these wishes,” Choi said in his acceptance speech.
Choi, who is regarded as a noted pro-President Park Geun-hye figure thanks to his long-time relations with her, said he and Kim are ready to cooperate with the party leadership including Chairman Hwang Woo-yea in order to resolve many matters.
Along with Choi and Kim, forth-term lawmaker Lee Ju-young and his running mate Chang Yoon-seok contested for the posts of floor leader and the Supreme Committee chairman, respectively.
In the DP’s election, Jun garnered 68 votes among a total of 125 party lawmakers in attendance.
“First of all, I thank you all for choosing me and Reps. Kim Dong-cheol and Woo Yoon-keun for competing with me in good faith. I will join hands with them and try to overcome the crisis the DP now faces,” Jun said in his acceptance speech.
He pledged to create a competent DP and expand its political force.
“I will spare no efforts to work together with DP Chairman Kim Han-gil and support our lawmakers. In addition, I will never neglect the wishes of those who voted for Kim and Woo,” he said.
The new floor leaders take their posts with both parties in crisis as they are losing public support. This could lead the two to seek each other’s cooperation, analysts said.
“Following the sexual abuse case, involving the now-fired presidential spokesman Yoon Chang-jung, public support for President Park dropped by 10 percent in a recent opinion poll. Support for the DP has already bottomed out over its chronic factional disputes and the advent of independent lawmaker Ahn Cheol-soo,” said Bae Jong-chan, a director at the department of social research and a consultant at Research & Research.
He said, to overcome these difficulties, the two newly-elected leaders will necessarily need to find common ground when dealing with pending issues at the Assembly in order for bills to be easily passed, rather than going head to head with each other.
“Jun is expected to actively cooperate to push forward the president and ruling party’s policies related to the people’s livelihood to pull up its rating, while Choi will try hard to prevent their ratings from further falling,” Bae said.
He added Jun and Choi’s roles may be highly significant as President Park will seek the Assembly’s cooperation more than ever following the Yoon incident.