KOREA: President declines meeting with opposition leader over media bills

Spokesperson for president and National Assembly speaker say ruling and opposition parties need to work out issues for media bills

The Korea Times
Monday, July 20, 2009

By Kang Hyun-kyung

President Lee Myung-bak wants the political parties to agree on the future of controversial media bills themselves, indicating that he is not in a position to meddle in the issue through meeting opposition leaders.

The reaction came after Democratic Party (DP) Chairman Chung Sye-kyun, now on the second day of a hunger strike inside the National Assembly, proposed a meeting with President Lee to end the parliamentary deadlock over the bills, Sunday.

Presidential spokesman Lee Dong-kwan indirectly rejected the call Monday, saying that the ruling and opposition parties, not the President, should handle the issue.

The governing Grand National Party's (GNP) plan to pass the media bills this week was put in doubt due to internal factional divisions.

It has become "risky" for the GNP to attempt to railroad the bills without opposition participation due to the fact that about 40-50 GNP legislators belonging to the Park Geun-hye faction may cast votes against them.

This possibility became apparent after former GNP Chairwoman Park said that she would oppose the bills.

Park's remarks put ruling party leaders in dismay as the disputed bills can only be passed if 148 of 294 sitting lawmakers or more vote for them.

Given Park's supporters among the 169 GNP lawmakers, it will be difficult for the governing party to pass the bills without her acquiescence.

In the meantime, National Assembly Speaker Kim Hyong-o said Monday that time was running out for inter-party negotiations on the bills.

The speaker said neither the governing party's push for the measures nor the opposition party's buying time was helpful in narrowing differences.

His statement was construed as urging the GNP and the DP to reach a last-minute accord on the disputed bills.

Kim's warning came before floor leaders of the two parties met again to hammer out their differences.

The two sides have changed their proposals several times so far in attempting to reach an agreement.

Despite the efforts, they still showed sharp differences over whether newspapers and conglomerates should be allowed to own national televisions and cable news networks.

The GNP contends that the two players should be allowed to have up to 20 percent and 49 percent of stakes in televisions and cable news networks, respectively.

It stressed that doing so would help not only create some 25,000 media jobs, but also better prepare for the future because only they can be afford to invest the large sums of money needed for media convergence.

The DP opposes this, insisting only that they should be allowed to own 20 to 30 percent stake in cable networks that provide no news programs.

It insisted that only pro-GNP coverage would dominate under the governing party's proposal and this would mislead public opinion.

The two parties have urged their counterparts to make concessions.

GNP floor leader Ahn Sang-soo repeated Monday that his party will pass the bills during the current National Assembly session which ends Saturday.

His counterpart Lee Kang-rae also showed few signs of toning down the DP's staunch opposition.

Date Posted: 7/20/2009