Younger Lawmakers Chair Assembly Committees
By Kang Hyun-kyung
Staff Reporter
The average age of National Assembly committee heads is younger than that of the previous term.
In a plenary session Tuesday, the Assembly elected the leaders of 18 Assembly standing panels.
More than 60 percent of the new Assembly committee chiefs are in their 50s, an increase from the previous term where only half were in this age group.
The unicameral legislature also passed a bill to control infectious diseases in cattle.
Under the bill, the government will impose a ban on imports of beef cuts from cattle aged 30 months or older for five years.
If the government plans to resume beef imports from countries previously banned, it must get approval from the legislature.
Of 18 Assembly panel chairmen, 11 belong to the governing Grand National Party (GNP), while six are affiliated with the main opposition Democratic Party (DP) and one with the Liberty Forward Party (LFP).
Park Jin, 52, a third-term lawmaker of the GNP was elected to chair the Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee.
Kim Young-sun, 48, selected to lead the Political Affairs Committee, is the youngest chairperson out of the 18 Assembly panel chiefs. She also belongs to the GNP.
The 18th legislature has two other Assembly committee chairwomen. They are DP lawmakers Choo Mi-ae of the Environment and Labor Committee and Shin Nak-yun of the Gender Equality Committee.
Choo unsuccessfully ran in the DP leadership race in July. Incumbent DP Chairman Chung Sye-kyun won the competition with a big margin.
Byun Ung-jun of the Liberty Forward Party (LFP), who leads the Health, Welfare and Family Affairs Committee, is the only chairman representing the minor party.
DP leaders placed ``tough fighters" into major committees as members in an attempt to tackle what they called the ruling party's going-it-alone in major policy agendas.
DP lawmaker Kang Gi-jung, for example, originally wanted to join the Health, Welfare and Family Affairs Committee. DP leader Chung, however, encouraged the hardliner to work with the Culture, Sport and Tourism Committee to fight against what he called the presidential office's plan to control broadcasters by placing President Lee Myung-bak's aides.
Chung told a radio program that ``the government's plan to turn major broadcasters into agents of pro-government propaganda made DP lawmakers transform into tough fighters.''
The DP chairman said his party lawmakers would step up attacks against the ruling party over several policy agendas, which he and his DP colleagues believe are heading in the wrong direction.
