otherwise 1) In another way, differently; 2) Under other circumstances; 3) In other respects.

Majority & Democracy in the Korean National Assembly

The wise folks at Associated Press report:

World Briefing - Asia - South Korea - Opposition Party Ends Siege of National Assembly - NYTimes.com

Opposition lawmakers ended their violent, 12-day siege of South Korea’s Parliament on Tuesday after successfully delaying a crucial vote on a United States free-trade deal and other legislation. Democratic Party legislators had occupied the Parliament since Dec. 26, fending off security guards who tried to drag them out. They ended their sit-in after the Assembly speaker assured them that the governing party would not ram the bills through before the next American president took office. The parties agreed to hold the vote after President-elect Barack Obama’s inauguration on Jan. 20.

This is SO not the whole story. And it's not just Korea's "feisty brand of democracy" as the New York Times condescendingly reports. What happened is this. It was the right-wing Grand National Party, the ruling party, that first tried to push through controversial legislation without the opposition party present -- by physically blockading them out of the National Assembly building. When the liberal opposition party tried to get in, they found themselves literally barricaded out, doors blocked with makeshift heaps of chairs and tables, effectively barring them from participating in debate or vote. A bunch of people got hurt and arrested, and the images of Korean politicians wrestling each other and the police got broadcast throughout the world as them "feisty" Koreans.

After that first debacle, the opposition party's assembly members snuck into the building over a weekend when nobody was there, and has been occupying the National Assembly to prevent the ruling party from shutting them out. In a way they're blocking the GNP from blocking them out.

Those guys in the photo above? They're actually trying to participate in the National Assembly committee meeting to discuss the contentious Korea-US Free Trade Agreement. They used crowbars and sledgehammers to try to get into the session, and this is what they got: fire extinguishers.

The latest is that the Democratic Party, the Liberty Forward Party, and the Renewal of Korea Party banded together to reach an accord with the Grand National Party (GNP), leaving behind the leftist Democratic Labor Party in the dust -- whose members (2, I think?) continued the "siege" until they were dragged out.

Why the physical scuffle? Because according to the Korean law, bills must be introduced by the Assembly speaker on the National Assembly floor, nowhere else, and called to a vote. Sounds reasonable, except that the GNP currently holds 172 seats in the 299-member legislature, while the second largest party, the Democratic Party, trailing with only 82 seats. In other words, the GNP has enough seats to be able to railroad anything it wants, and the opposition parties don't have the numbers to stop them.

So, the logical thing to do? Physically stop the Assembly speaker from introducing anything, that's what. Keep him out of the National Assembly, knock the microphone out of his hands, stage-dive to shove him off the podium, whatever it takes.

It goes the other way, too. The ruling parties have in the past assembled "secret" sessions in the middle of the night, just among themselves, introducing and passing all sorts of "emergency" legislations.

It's "majority rules" taken to an extreme.

Something's gotta change.

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