South Korea began a new political era yesterday after the liberal Uri party won a major election victory that ended conservative control of parliament and gave a vote of support to the impeached president.
The Uri Party captured a majority in Thursday's election on a groundswell of support for President Roh Moo-hyun, tripling its seats at the expense of the parties that sent him into a political limbo last month for violating a minor election law.
"Our people wrote a new history of elections," acting President Goh Kun said in a televised address. "With this election, I hope a new era of politics of co-existence and cooperation will be born."
Goh, who is interim leader until the Constitutional Court rules on the impeachment vote, said the government and all political parties should concentrate on reviving the economy.
Thursday's election marked the first time a left-leaning or liberal party had won control of a hitherto conservative chamber and meant the pro-Roh Uri Party could push through reformist legislation long stalled by opponents.
"Uri" means "our" in Korean, and the party's full name means "Our Open Party."
One cloud over the election came with the prosecutors office saying it was investigating 53 newly-elected members of parliament for violations of election laws, but said the party affiliation was confidential. After the 2000 election, about 10 legislators were stripped of their seats for infractions.
One of the most momentous shifts in policy could come if Uri and Roh -- if he is reinstated by the Constitutional Court -- change the emphasis in ties with the US, Seoul's ally for half a century, altering plans to send troops to Iraq and dealings with North Korea's nuclear threat.
The party's policy chief suggested a rethink on Seoul's decision to send 3,000 troops to help the US-led effort in Iraq was possible if the fighting worsened there.
"We've committed to a mission of peace and reconstruction, and it's still possible we'll be able to do that. But if the situation deteriorates seriously, we might have to think about it again," Chung Sye-kyun told reporters, referring to the deployment.
Newspapers described the election outcome as a generation shift from those who dragged the country from the ruins of the 1950-to-1953 Korean War to those who grew up as South Korea secured its place as Asia's fourth-largest economy.
The Uri Party won 152 seats in the 299-seat National Assembly, the National Election Commission said.
The opposition Grand National Party won 121 seats, down from the 133 it had in the last parliament, which it dominated.
Taiwan has arranged for about 8 million barrels of crude oil, or about one-third of its monthly needs, to be shipped from the Red Sea this month to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and ease domestic supply pressures, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said yesterday. The state-run oil company has worked with Middle Eastern suppliers to secure routes other than the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas typically passes, CPC chairman Fang Jeng-zen (方振仁) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei. Suppliers in Saudi Arabia have indicated they
A global survey showed that 60 percent of Taiwanese had attained higher education, second only to Canada, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan easily surpassed the global average of 43 percent and ranked ahead of major economies, including Japan, South Korea and the US, data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for 2024 showed. Taiwan has a high literacy rate, data released by the ministry showed. As of the end of last year, Taiwan had 20.617 million people aged 15 or older, accounting for 88.5 percent of the total population, with a literacy rate of 99.4 percent, the data
CCP ‘PAWN’? Beijing could use the KMT chairwoman’s visit to signal to the world that many people in Taiwan support the ‘one China’ principle, an academic said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday arrived in China for a “peace” mission and potential meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), while a Taiwanese minister detailed the number of Chinese warships currently deployed around the nation. Cheng is visiting at a time of increased Chinese military pressure on Taiwan, as the opposition-dominated Legislative Yuan stalls a government plan for US$40 billion in extra defense spending. Speaking to reporters before going to the airport, Cheng said she was going on a “historic journey for peace,” but added that some people felt uneasy about her trip. “If you truly love Taiwan,
NEW LOW: The council in 2024 based predictions on a pessimistic estimate for the nation’s total fertility rate of 0.84, but last year that rate was 0.69, 17 percent lower An expected National Development Council (NDC) report expects the nation’s population to drop below 12 million by 2065, with the old-age dependency ratio to top 100 percent sooner than 2070, sources said yesterday. The council is slated to release its latest population projections in August, using an ultra-low fertility model, the sources said. The previous report projected that Taiwan’s population would fall to 14.37 million by 2070, but based on a new estimate of the total fertility rate (TFR) — the average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime — the population is expected to reach 12 million by
RSS