Seoul, February 25: South Korea's main opposition party today boycotted a National Assembly session convened to approve the appointment of a conservative prime minister named by President Kim Dae-Jung.The boycott decision was announced only hours after Kim Dae-Jung was sworn in as president. The assembly session had been called for today afternoon to approve the appointment of his conservative political ally, Kim Jong-Pil, as prime minister.
``The assembly failed to open after the opposition Hanara-Dang (grand national party of GNP) notified us that it would boycott the session,'' a member of Kim's ruling National Congress for New Politics (NCNP) told AFP.``We will try to resume negotiations with the opposition party,'' he said.A GNP spokesman said his party had ``decided to stay away to avoid a possible physical confrontation which could hurt the country's national image'' on inauguration day.
Lee Han Dong, a senior member of the opposition GNP, which has majority in parliament, told a meeting of GNPlawmakers that ``our party should be reborn as a real opposition on this occasion.'' Earlier, Kim Dae-Jung took the oath of office and in his first pledge to the nation proposed an exchange of envoys with the communist North.
He also vowed, during an elaborate open air ceremony attended by some 49,000 guests, Korean and foreign, to do his utmost to revive the crisis-hit economy.
It was the first transfer of power from a ruling to an opposition party in South Korea's history, and Kim said he was calling his government a ``government of the people.'' ``I solemnly swear before the people to abide by the constitution, protect the country, strive for peaceful unification of the fatherland, enhance the welfare of the people and uphold the nation's culture,'' Kim said.
The oath-taking, telecast nationwide, under bright, sunny skies in an open-air amphitheatre outside Seoul's National Assembly building was followed by singing by massed choirs.
The thousands of guests from at home and abroad included anine-member US delegation led by President Bill Clinton's special advisor Thomas McLarty, former French Premier Pierre Mauroy, Japanese ex-Prime Minister Yasuhiro Makasone and Germany's former president Richard Von Weizsaecker.
Also present were IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch, Philippine ex-president Corazon Aquino, one of Kim Dae-Jung's closest friends, US civil rights leader Jesse Jackson and three US former ambassadors who helped save Kim from death under past military governments.
As he mounted the podium to take the oath of office at the outdoor inauguration ceremony, Kim, 74, also shook hands with former president Chun Doo-Hwan, whose government in 1980 had put him on the death row.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
