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By Kim Hyo-jin
The main opposition Liberty Korea Party (LKP) has done little in negotiations on the budget bill for next year, virtually surrendering to what the ruling bloc wants. It also reversed its floor leader's decision agreeing with the rival parties on the 2018 budget bill, after many of its members protested the agreement.
The parties reached a tentative agreement on the budget bill Monday, which primarily reflected the opinions of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) and the minor opposition People's Party's.
The LKP had demanded the government to halve the number of public sector jobs it planned to create from the projected 12,221.
But in the final agreement, floor leaders of the three parties concluded to set the number at 9,475, which was much closer to the number the People's Party had presented of between 8,000 and 9,000.
Also, the LKP wanted a temporary subsidy for small businesses to cover the cost increase from the minimum wage hike for just one year, but this was not reflected in the final agreement.
Its protest against a corporate tax hike was not accepted either, with the remaining two parties agreeing to increase it from the current 22 percent to 25 percent on companies with taxable profit of 300 billion won or more.
The LKP failed to team up with the third-largest People's Party. While the DPK and LKP played tug of war in the last-minute deal, Monday, the People's Party made the most of the situation by tabling its own proposals.
During the process, the People's Party won the DPK's agreement on allocating 1.3 trillion won for a KTX project in the Jeolla region, the party's home ground.
The minor party's achievement made the LKP's poor negotiation skills stand out further, party officials said.
One LKP official said in a show of disappointment, "Almost all the infrastructure budget for local districts requested by our lawmakers was not included in the final agreement. It could even affect the upcoming local elections."
Although the LKP jointly announced the tentative agreement together with the DPK and the People's Party, its floor leader Rep. Chung Woo-taik said the party still does not agree on the number of public sector jobs and the corporate tax, saying his party members need to discuss it more.
But the move only received the cold shoulder from many LKP lawmakers, with the party having an internal feud.
Rep. Kim Jae-won denounced Chung for signing the agreement in the first place. Rep. Chang Je-won also blamed the floor leader, saying, "The result even failed to uphold our party line that puts value on a free market economy."
After long hours of discussions in a party meeting Tuesday, LKP lawmakers decided to oppose the budget bill. Rep. Yi Wan-young told reporters that many lawmakers voiced "nullifying the intra-party agreement" or "voting against the budget bill" during a plenary session.
Its protest, however, can hardly expect a vote down of the bill. The number of DPK and People's Party lawmakers alone exceeds a majority in the 298-seat National Assembly, the quorum for holding the vote.
