Rival parties clash head-on over budget plan

Lawmakers of rival parties on Tuesday clashed physically over next year's national budget plan with only three days left before the end of the regular session. 

Dozens of opposition lawmakers and their aides fought with their counterparts from the ruling Grand National Party (GNP) when their entry into a plenary session of the committee on land and maritime affairs was blocked by the latter.

Rival parties clash over the national budget plan for 2011 in the National Assembly on Nov. 8. (Yonhap News)

A GNP lawmaker was rushed to a local hospital after being hit on the head with a gavel thrown during the scuffle, according to another GNP lawmaker who witnessed the scene. The attacked lawmaker, Hyun Ki-hwan, suffered a minor injury, his aide said.

Some 40 lawmakers of the main opposition Democratic Party (DP) took over the chairman's seat and podium at the main congress hall late at night to block the GNP from jamming the budget bill through the parliament.

Lawmakers of rival parties struggle to take the chairman’s seat and podium at the main chamber to block the ruling GNP from railroading the budget bill through the parliament, on Nov.8. (Yonhap News)

The move came two hours after about 400 lawmakers from the DP and minor opposition parties, including the Democratic Labor Party, launched a sit-in at the main lobby of the Congress to block GNP lawmakers from entering parliamentary meetings.

The GNP has repeatedly vowed to finish budget deliberations by Thursday, accusing the DP of intentionally delaying the procedure for political gains -- to derail the key domestic agendas of the Lee Myung-bak administration, including the four-river refurbishment project, ahead of the 2012 presidential election. The party controls the majority with 171 seats in the 298-member unicameral parliament.

The party has also threatened to put the budget bill to voting in the plenary session of the committee on Wednesday and then in a full floor session the next day, if no decision was made in the committee's subpanel meeting by 11 p.m. on Tuesday.

But the DP has threatened to employ physical means in that case to block its passage, demanding an extraordinary parliamentary session be held to follow the regular session.

Lawmakers of the Democratic Party stage a sit-in protest over the four-river refurbishment project on Nov. 8. (Yonhap News)

The party already submitted a request for the extra session to the Assembly with four other opposition parties.

The party said it will not clear the occupations of the parliamentary speaker's podium and the main lobby until the rival party accepts its demand for convening an extraordinary session when the regular meeting is over.

"The occupation will basically continue until Thursday, the last day of the regular session," Park Ki-choon, deputy floor leader of the DP, told Yonhap News Agency by phone. "But we can end this earlier if the GNP agrees to call an extraordinary session and faithfully deliberate the budget bill," he said.

The government has proposed a 309.6 trillion won budget (US$274.5 billion) for 2011, an approximate 6 percent increase from this year. But the DP is aiming for a reduction of 11.3 trillion won, making cuts in virtually every major sector related to the controversial river refurbishment project.

The state is pushing to allocate 9.6 trillion won next year for the refurbishment of the nation's four major rivers -- the Han, Nakdong, Geumgang and Yeongsan -- which the Lee administration says will help prevent floods and enhance water quality.

The rival parties already missed the Dec. 2 legal deadline for getting the bill passed in the Assembly but were still nowhere near agreement as of Tuesday.   

With the mess outside, the GNP unilaterally opened the land and maritime affairs committee meeting and submitted 92 bills, including one aimed to speed up the river refurbishment project, for discussion inside a closed-door conference room at the Assembly.

The GNP-led river basin development bill allows authorities to designate areas within a 2-kilometer reach from the four rivers as a special environment-friendly development zone where commercial facilities can be built.

The bill is aimed at providing legal support to the river project, which is at the center of the partisan conflict over the budget plan. The government wants to allocate about 9.6 trillion won from next year's budget but the DP wants to cut most of the budget set aside for the river project, saying it will cause disaster to the nation's ecosystems. (Yonhap News)