A political standoff surrounding a parliamentary audit has seemingly subdued after the ruling Saenuri Party decided to withdraw its boycott and rival parties agreed to extend the period of the audit session.

But bipartisan tension is likely to continue, as the Saenuri pushed for a law revision to reinforce the Assembly Speaker‘s political neutrality, an idea which The Minjoo Party of Korea dismissed.

The ruling and opposition parties on Monday agreed to push back the closing date for the parliamentary audit to rom Oct. 15 to 19, seeking to make up for losses caused by the ruling party‘s boycott last week.

“Depending on each standing committee’s schedule for the audit session, we agreed to let each party’s committee representatives run the audit session flexibly and faithfully,” said Rep. Kim Do-eup of the Saenuri Party after a closed-door meeting with his counterparts at the Minjoo Party of Korean and the People’s Party. 

The three parties’ chief negotiators, however, reportedly failed to reach a consensus over whether to enact a law aiming to punish the Speaker for violating the rule of staying neutral on legislative affairs.

“The two rival parties still remain at odds over these issues,” said Rep. Kim Kwan-young of the People’s Party.

While the Saenuri Party asserts that the bill is crucial to prevent recurrence of what they saw as a “biased” handling of legislative affairs by the speaker, the Minjoo Party counters that the Saenuri Party should stop undermining the speaker first before changing the law. 

The Assembly Speaker Rep. Chung Sye-kyun, a former member of The Minjoo Party who lost his membership upon being elected as a speaker, was criticized by the Saenuri Party’s lawmaker for steering the legislative body in favor of the opposition parties. 

The Saenuri Party claimed that the independent lawmaker held a plenary session last Saturday without informing them, in order to put to a vote a motion recommending the dismissal of Agriculture Minister Kim Jae-soo despite their opposition. The speaker disputed the claim. 

Afterwards, the Saenuri Party launched an all-out protest demanding the speaker’s resignation. Besides boycotting the audit session, its party leader Rep. Lee Jung-hyun staged a hunger strike at his office and the party member filed a criminal charge against Chung for abusing his power. 

“It was unprecedented for the ruling party to press charges against incumbent Assembly speaker,” Rep. Park Wan-joo of the Minjoo Party who attended Monday’s three-way meeting. “The parties should first build a trust.” 

The speaker, for his part, welcomed the Saenuri Party’s decision to return to audit session while expressing regret over the political deadlock. “I’d like to deliver an apology to the people for the Assembly causing concern when the nation faces many challenges,” said the speaker in a statement on Sunday. 

But his spokesman Kim Young-soo maintained that the speaker’s decision to put the dismissal bill to a vote in a plenary session was “not something that needs an apology” because it followed the parliamentary laws.

The speaker argued he had consulted with the ruling party before the vote and holding the session was “inevitable” to finalize the issue before a deadline. The Saenuri Party disputed the claim, arguing that they were only notified via paper minutes before holding the session. 

By law, the lawmakers must hold a plenary session to finalize a motion recommending the dismissal of a cabinet member during a time frame of between 24 and 72 hours after the motion was submitted to the floor. The recommendation was submitted on Thursday at 10 a.m. and the deadline was set between Friday 10 a.m. and Sunday 10 a.m.

The parliamentary audit was originally scheduled to be held for 20 days from Sept. 26. The sessions are expected to target about 700 entities and 3,000 witnesses -- including top government officials and chaebol owners such as Cho Yang-ho, chairman of Hanjin Group, whose shipping company recently filed for bankruptcy.

By Yeo Jun-suk (jasonyeo@heraldcorp.com)