The National Assembly on Monday began a first-of-its kind confirmation hearing on acting Prime Minister Chang Sang and if her nomination by President Kim Dae-jung is approved in parliament she stands to become the nation's first female prime minister.

Political parties have been at odds over Chang's qualifications amid controversy her son obtained US citizenship to dodge military service and that she engaged in real estate speculation and misrepresented her academic background. In addition new charges emerged that she was engaged in apartment speculation.

During the first day of the hearing it was revealed that Chang changed her registration three times between 1979 and 1988, without actually moving. During the period Chang lived in an apartment in Daehyun-dong, Sodaemun, but while there she registered as living in three places in Gangnam.

Grand National Party member Shim Jae-chul said this was an illegal action to fulfill the required six-month period for habitation before selling an apartment.

Chang said she did not realize any of this until the hearing, as it was her mother-in-law who filed the registrations. Millennium Democratic Party member Chun Yong-hak said this was difficult to understand as every time a person moves this is recorded.

The hearing will continue Tuesday, and hear 19 witnesses related to her, before a secret vote Wednesday.

However, despite the spate of controversies surrounding Chang, political analysts say she is likely to get the assembly's endorsement when lawmakers take a vote on Wednesday. A former president of Ehwa Womans University, Chang was tapped to take up the post of prime minister in a cabinet reshuffle on July 11.

(Kim Chang-kyun, ck-kim@chosun.com )