National Assembly Speaker Woo Won-shik wipes away tears as he announces he will not put a constitutional amendment bill to a vote during a plenary session in Seoul, Friday. Yonhap
The ruling Democratic Party of Korea's (DPK) push to put a constitutional change to a national vote in the upcoming local elections fell through Friday as the main opposition People Power Party (PPP) continued to boycott a parliamentary vote on the proposal.
Shortly after Friday's plenary session opened, National Assembly Speaker Woo Won-shik announced that he will not put the amendment bill to a vote as the PPP warned it would launch a filibuster to block the proposal.
"I convened the plenary session again today in an effort to prevent the first constitutional amendment vote in 39 years from falling through," Woo said. "But I believe further proceedings would be meaningless, seeing the (PPP) responding with a filibuster."
The PPP boycotted a vote on the bill Thursday, leaving the unicameral parliament short of a quorum.
The proposed bill aimed to tighten the rules for declaring martial law, requiring the president to obtain parliamentary approval without delay and stipulating that if the National Assembly rejects the declaration or fails to approve it within 48 hours, the martial law will be immediately nullified.
It also sought to include the 1980 pro-democracy uprising in Gwangju and the 1979 Busan-Masan pro-democracy protests in the preamble. It currently states that the country inherits the spirit of the April 19 revolution in 1960, which overthrew Korea's first president, Rhee Syng-man, over election fraud.
The bill was jointly proposed by 187 lawmakers from the DPK and five minor parties.
A constitutional amendment requires two thirds of votes from sitting lawmakers to be put to a national referendum for final approval by a majority of ballots cast.
Korea is set to hold its quadrennial local elections on June 3.
Source: Korea Times News
