ed Dialogue with opposition

President Park Geun-hye met with the leaders of the ruling and opposition parties on Wendesday following her budget speech at the National Assembly. Both the address and the meeting may go down in history because Park was the first head of state to give a budget speech for two years in a row. And it was also the first time that the President met with the political leaders to exchange a wide range of views on state affairs after the speech.

Park is laudable for breaking the undesirable tradition of having the prime minister read a speech on the President’s behalf from the second year of an administration. There is a strong need to normalize the chief executive’s budget speech, a crucial annual event outlining how the nation will be steered in the upcoming year, and to meet with political leaders.

During the one-hour meeting, President Park mostly listened to opposition leaders’ views on contentious issues without responding. And the rival parties agreed to pass next year’s budget bill by the legally binding deadline of Dec. 2 and the special Sewol bill by the end of October, but there were no other notable agreements.

Even so, the people, who are fed up with partisan wrangling, must welcome the rare scene of our political leaders discussing national issues candidly. We hope that the meeting will serve as an occasion to restore the politics of dialogue and compromise, which have been lost in the midst of tense standoff over the Sewol bill.

It’s good to see, in particular, Moon Hee-sang, the interim leader of the main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy (NPAD), say, "The more meetings with the President, the better. We’ll criticize what deserves criticism but cooperate for what deserves cooperation.’’

The ruling camp, for its part, needs to be broadly responsive to the opposition parties’ reasonable proposals. It would be wrong if the governing Saenuri Party rejects the opposition’s arguments just because they contradict President Park’s intentions. Ruling party lawmakers should remember that the parliamentary passage of economic and other reform bills, which President Park said she wanted to be endorsed quickly during her speech, will be possible only when the parties restore the politics of dialogue and compromise.

It’s true they are still poles apart on some contentious issues such as overhauling the debt-ridden pension system for civil servants. That’s why President Park and the rival parties ought to show respect for political opponents like they did in parliament on Wednesday.

What’s needed is for Park to communicate with opposition more actively to make our politics more productive. This means that a meeting between the President and political leaders should not be a one-time event. Rather, she must feel free to meet them whenever necessary.