Opposition parties launch campaigns to nullify beef announcement
Hankyoreh | 27 June 2008
Opposition parties launch campaigns to nullify beef announcement
UDP lawmakers call for national referendum on beef issue, DLP hopes to censure president
The country’s opposition parties declared the official announcement to resume imports of U.S. beef null and void and launched a series of campaigns to have it withdrawn. Opposition party members have also proposed plans to hold a national referendum on the beef agreement and plan to seek other forms of legal action against it.
During a press conference on June 26, the People’s Solidarity for Democratization and Peace, a group of former activists within the main opposition United Democratic Party, called for a national referendum on the beef issue. Former lawmaker Woo Won-shik said, “As the beef deal is directly connected with the people’s right to live, President Lee Myung-bak should resolve this problem through a national referendum. We will launch a campaign to urge the government to do this.”
The Liberty Forward Party is also discussing the possibility of pursuing a national referendum. During a briefing held on the same day, Park Sun-young, a LFP spokeswoman, said, “The LFP is considering a plan to conduct a national referendum on the ministerial notice for the resumption of U.S. beef imports. We will decide whether or not to pursue this after watching the candlelight rallies this weekend.”
In the meantime, the UDP sought an injunction asking the Constitutional Court to suspend the official announcement, which took effect on June 26, saying that the announcement is against the law because the government did not issue an advance notice about it.
UDP floor leader Won Hye-young said, “Today is the second National Day of Humiliation, in remembrance of the Lee government’s denial of the first principle of democracy, that sovereign power resides with the people.”
In a similar move, the LFP also sought an injunction against the official announcement. The LFP also plans to file a lawsuit to nullify the effect of the ministerial notice. If the government is found not to have gone through normal administrative procedures in the course of making its official announcement, the LFP will seek the impeachment of the related ministers.
The minor opposition Democratic Labor Party has declared that it will stage a no-confidence campaign against President Lee Myung-bak. DLP leaders held a press conference in front of the Blue House early in the day to denounce the government’s enforcement of the official announcement for resumption of U.S. beef imports and the crackdown on demonstrators. They also attacked the government and the GNP, saying that they “played a major role in ruining the country” and calling them “pro-U.S. traitors who offered the nation’s sovereignty and the people’s right to protect their health to the United States.”
Meanwhile, the DLP and the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, an umbrella labor organization, held demonstrations aimed at blocking shipments of U.S. beef at four cold storage warehouses in Yongin and Gwangju, Gyeonggi Province.
When former President Roh Moo-hyun pushed for the relocation of the nation’s administrative capital in 2005, the Grand National Party, which was the opposition party at the time, submitted a resolution urging the government to conduct a national referendum on the division and relocation of the capital.
