{"id":2199457,"date":"2022-11-11T10:19:45","date_gmt":"2022-11-11T10:19:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nknews.org\/koreapro\/?p=2199457"},"modified":"2023-04-05T16:11:00","modified_gmt":"2023-04-05T07:11:00","slug":"sound-and-fury-a-divided-south-korean-parliament-ends-contentious-audit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/koreapro.org\/2022\/11\/sound-and-fury-a-divided-south-korean-parliament-ends-contentious-audit\/","title":{"rendered":"Sound and fury: A divided South Korean parliament ends contentious audit"},"content":{"rendered":"
South Korea\u2019s National Assembly completed its first full audit this week since Yoon Suk-yeol\u2019s election. But a chain of scandals marked the procedures and drove a never-ending confrontation between progressives and conservatives.<\/span><\/p>\n The parliamentary audit is a big deal that has few analogs in other constitutional democracies. Normally, the audit starts in late September and continues for some 20 days. All administrative agencies (ministries, state-run enterprises, local administrations, etc.) are <\/span>subject to the audit<\/span><\/a>, which means the National Assembly must review 780 individual units. Private citizens may also be summoned for testimony.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Past audits have unveiled some real problems in various parts of the South Korean government. In 2013, <\/span>for example<\/span><\/a>, Yoon Suk-yeol \u2014 then a prosecutor known for his role in anti-corruption campaigns \u2014 investigated National Intelligence Service officials over election campaign interference. His superiors in the Park Geun-hye administration ordered him to stop his investigation, orders that came to light during the parliamentary audit that year.<\/span><\/p>\n Another scandal erupted <\/span>in 2018<\/span><\/a> after DP assemblyman Park Yong-jin <\/span>exposed cases of corruption<\/span><\/a> in private kindergartens during the annual audit, leading to mass reform.<\/span><\/p>\n While this year’s audit did not have the same explosiveness, it still led to some important findings that could have consequences for South Korean national politics.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n For example, during an audit of the Committee of Science and ICT, it came to light that the head of Korean Google Kim Kyoung Hoon <\/span>lied during his testimony<\/span><\/a> to lawmakers, feigning ignorance about basic questions that any competent head of a tech company like Google should know.<\/span><\/p>\n The parliamentary audit also touched on the <\/span>population decline issue<\/span><\/a>, which might be the most important long-term challenge Korea now faces. During the audit, presidents of leading local universities testified about the crisis of their schools that cannot recruit enough students any more.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n But it would not be an exaggeration to say that the lead character in this political show was Lee Jae-myung, the current head of the Democratic Party (DP).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n