The National Assembly failed to vote on the free trade agreement (FTA) with Chile on Thursday, the last day of this winter's extraordinary Assembly session. Speaker Park Kwan-yong tried to put the ratification bill to a vote, but members of the Grand National and Millennium Democratic parties representing agricultural areas surrounded the speaker's platform and interrupted the proceedings for close to an hour and 40 minutes. The FTA bill was eventually scheduled to be dealt with on the main floor again Feb. 9.
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As Park Gwan-yong, speaker of the National Assembly, is to declare the vote of the Korea-Chile FTA amendment, members of the Grand National Party and the Millennium Democratic Party from farming villages try to interrupt the proceeding.
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When protests by the Assembly members from farming regions made normal proceedings impossible, Park said he would put it to a vote on Feb. 9, and that if physical force is used to keep a vote from happening, he would invoke the "Speaker's Power of Guard," and ask the police to maintain order.
Park put the ratification bill to a main floor debate at 4:12 p.m. on the final day of the latest Assembly session, but approximately 40 representatives from farming districts, including GNP's Rhee Q Taek (Yeoju-gun, Gyeonggi Province) and the MDP's Lee Jung Il (South Jeolla Province, Haenam/Jindo-gun), surrounded the speaker's platform and blocked all further parliamentary proceedings. Park told the representatives that he "understands your difficult circumstances," but that "doing this isn't going to solve the problems of agricultural regions."
Nevertheless, the group of Assembly members insisted that there "needs to be more time for discussion between the government and farmers." They insisted that they would do all they could to prevent a vote Thursday, and called for the ratification bill to be dealt at the extraordinary Assembly session starting in February, but only in connection with a revised Agricultural Region Assistance Act, one giving more support to farming areas.
In response to their demands, the GNP and MDP have begun discussing agriculture aide proposals, including writing off additional farming debts.
Before the attempted vote Thursday, President Roh Moo-hyun visited the National Assembly and met with GNP chairman Choe Byung-yul, MDP chairman Chough Soon-hyung, and Kim Won-ki of Uri Party, telling them that "while things are difficult for farming area Assemblymen," once the bill is ratified, "the government will do its best to come up with more policies to maintain stability in farming areas."
(Park Du-sik, dspark@chosun.com )
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