With the end of the opposition occupation of the National Assembly chambers, the different parties have negotiated a schedule for voting on 85 bills: Lawmakers end Assembly standoff:
A timetable was agreed upon by floor leaders from the Grand National Party, the Democratic Party and an alliance of the Liberty Forward and Creative Korea parties yesterday evening, but votes on hotly contested bills were largely postponed to a February session or no deadline was set...
Of the list of 85 urgent bills that the GNP wanted to push through, negotiators agreed that 58 less-sensitive measures should be deliberated and voted on before the end of the current session...
The current Assembly session ends on January 8. The trade agreement bill was left for some indefinite date after Obama's inauguration.
The opposition occupation of the Assembly chambers was an effective parliamentary maneuver, forcing a revision of the majority's legislative timetable.
Troy Stangarone of the Korea Economic Institute summarizes the events of the last couple of weeks (Melee Breaks Out in National Assembly over KORUS FTA):
Attempts by the majority Grand National Party (GNP) to pass the KORUS FTA before the end of 2008 led to a series of standoffs, sometimes violent, in the National Assembly. The differences remained unresolved as Insight went to press.
The dispute began when the GNP submitted legislation to ratify the KORUS FTA to the Foreign Affairs, Unification, and Trade Committee after failing to reach an agreement with the Democratic Party (DP) on additional measures to provide aid to farmers who may be negatively impacted by the agreement. In an effort to avoid physical attempts by the opposition to block the legislation, GNP lawmakers slipped into the committee room early in the morning and locked out opposition lawmakers. In response, members of the DP attempted to break into the room with chainsaws, sledgehammers, and other tools. However, the GNP members secure in the committee room proceeded to pass the KORUS FTA ratification bill and refer it to the legislative review committee, the final step before a vote by the National Assembly as a whole.
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