Prospects for the last regular session of the 19th National Assembly remained dim as the rival parties got off to a shaky start Tuesday, locking horns over the main opposition party’s demand to disclose details of special allowances spent by state offices.

On the first day of the 100-day session, the parliament came to a deadlock as rival parties engaged in a political dogfight over the proposal by the New Politics Alliance for Democracy, leaving other imminent issues behind. 

The NPAD has been demanding imposing stricter monitoring on the government’s spending on special activities, including the money spent by the National Intelligence Agency. 

The ruling Saenuri Party has been rejecting the demand, citing confidentiality concerns of the spy agency’s activities. Special allowances include the money allocated to law enforcement agencies or the NIS to cover expenses generated over the course of secret investigations or information gathering. Officials on such missions are not obliged to report where the money is spent. The opposition party, however, claimed that such money has long been a source for bureaucratic corruption.

The partisan wrangling, however, further postponed the passage of bills including the parliamentary endorsement of a Supreme Court nominee and a settlement bill on the 2014 budget, which were supposed to be completed last month. In the regular session, the National Assembly is tasked with legislating a series of bills related to people’s livelihood before lawmakers’ attention shifts next year to general elections. 

But prospects remain bleak as the ruling and main opposition parties are expected to clash over bills being pushed by the Park Geun-hye administration to reform the nation’s labor, education and finance sectors.

The governing Saenuri Party has vowed to pass a set of bills aimed at overhauling the job market as soon as a trilateral committee on labor reform reaches an agreement. It is also gearing up to pass other bills on Park’s service industry bill, a free trade agreement with China and a budget bill for next year.

The NPAD, for its part, is expected to go on the offensive against the Saenuri’s drive by pressing the ruling party to include measures to crack down on chaebol, family-owned conglomerates, in addition to Park’s labor reform bill.

Lawmakers from both rival parties expressed concerns for possible delays in the legislature’s work due to the intensifying partisan fights.

“We have a heap of work including reform bills (to stabilize) the public welfare, (to authorize the) budget for year 2016 and (to effectuate) a free trade deal (between South Korea and China),” said Rep. Won Yoo-chul, Saenuri’s floor leader. “I expect the main opposition party to make bipartisan efforts to revive the economy.”

Rep. Lee Jong-kul, floor leader of the NPAD, however, vowed the party would take its own path in resistance to a reform drive pushed by the conservative bloc. The NPAD has established a set of four key agenda items concerning the promotion of the public’s livelihood, economic revival, labor and management relations and national unity, a move seen as an attempt to differentiate itself from Park’s reform drive.

By Cho Chung-un (christory@heraldcorp.com)