Chapter 43 Choices made to keep promises

During my two and three months as a party representative, the time when the "Special Act on Administrative Center Complex Cities" was passed was the most painful.The "New Administrative Capital Special Law", which was originally passed at the 16th Congress, was ruled unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court on October 21, 2004.Immediately in the National Assembly, the government and the opposition set up a special committee for the follow-up measures of the new administrative capital to discuss this issue.The Grand National Party reached an agreement with the ruling party with the goal of building Yeongi and Gongju into multi-functional complex cities, but the ruling party proposed to transfer the 16th Ministry, 4th Office, and 3rd Office on February 5, 2005 Special Acts of Government Agencies.

Unlike the ruling party, the Grand National Party is divided on this issue.Some people argue that since it has been found to be unconstitutional, it is enough to vote against it as if there is no such matter; but some people argue that since it was passed by the 16th Congress, our Grand National Party is responsible, so it should be with the ruling party. The party negotiated and held affirmative votes to make it pass. On February 11, 2005, after the Chinese New Year, I held a countermeasure meeting.After a two-hour meeting, I came to a conclusion: "It is no longer possible to return to the original point as if there was no such incident, and we also have responsibilities, so we should try our best to negotiate with the ruling party in the special committee, and discuss it with the parliamentarians. The decision of the party will be decided at the top.” And I asked Rep. Kim Hak-song, who is a supervisor of the GNP on the special committee, to do his best in the special committee. On February 23, the plan agreed by the ruling and opposition special committees was to transfer the 12th Ministry, 4th Office, and 2nd Office to Yanqi and Gongju areas, and the upper limit of national financial expenditure was 8.5 trillion won.

It happened to be the 15th day of the first lunar month. After the morning meeting, I set out to participate in the moon appreciation ceremony held on the beach in Haeundae, Busan and the speech event of the Business Research Institute of Busan University.I took the KTX (Korean high-speed rail) from Seoul Station to Busan, and when I was about to arrive in Daejeon, I received an urgent call from the secretary's office, saying that the special committee's negotiation between the government and the opposition had been completed, and that the general assembly of parliamentarians needed to be convened immediately. The train to Seoul goes back.

As soon as I arrived in Congress, a General Assembly of Members was called.Members of Congress have great differences of opinion, and the two sides are tit-for-tat, and it is difficult to discuss the results for a while.In the end, in the absence of a consensus, we had to vote to determine the party's resolution.The result of the vote was 46 to 37. There were more votes in favor, but there were also many votes against it. It was really a very difficult decision. The situation has deteriorated since then. The vote at the plenary meeting on March 2 is about to begin, but members who opposed the law continued to protest at the venue, resulting in "delay the processing of the bill until April", "members will always vote again", "hold a referendum", etc. claim.Several lawmakers even said they would resign as members of Congress if the law passed.In the case of members of the same party resigning, as a party representative, I must face up to the seriousness of this problem and must also think about solutions.

But I have to make a decision: As an open political party, the party's resolution cannot be changed after the voting results have been announced.I don't think it should be done for the future of the party. On March 2, the chairman of the policy committee, Park Se-il, whom I personally appointed 50 days ago, announced his resignation as chairman of the committee due to opposition to the party's resolution.As a party representative, I still have to abide by the party's resolutions.I believe that is the duty of the party representatives, and my thoughts have not changed so far.

That day I said at the General Assembly: "I know there are many people who are dissatisfied, but an open political party cannot conduct a re-vote. This bill has become a resolution of our party. Please vote in the plenary meeting according to your beliefs for and against Go ahead." That night, the bill was passed in the plenary session of Congress, amidst the shouting and jostling of opposition lawmakers. As soon as the law was passed, Councilor Jeon Jae-hee started a hunger strike to demand a referendum. Councilor Park Se-il announced that he would resign as a councillor. Many councilors scolded the party leadership in a strong tone.My heart hurts.They went on hunger strike and resigned in order to stick to their beliefs, but as a party representative, I must unswervingly abide by the party's resolutions.I personally ask Congressman Jeon Jae-hee to stop his hunger strike, and Congressman Park Se-il not to resign as a member.

From March 15th, I will go to the United States for a long-planned visit to the United States.Just the day before departure, I managed to contact Councilor Park Se-il, who lived in the temple after resigning, and made an appointment for the two to have lunch together.I'm going to stop him from resigning no matter what.Unfortunately, the lunch appointment was canceled, which ultimately failed to stop him. Looking back now, I still feel that it was the most painful thing when I was a party representative. Before the general election in 2004, shortly after I became a party representative, Rep. Park Se-il, the director of the Yeouido Research Institute and the chairman of the policy committee, who had been working in the Grand National Party, resigned because of this case, which made me very sad.

I still respect the decisions they made based on their beliefs.But my decision still abides by the party's resolution, which is my belief.So it's a conflict of belief versus belief.Even if I go back to that time in the past, as a party representative, the result will still not change. After this law was passed, on March 4th, I posted a paragraph like this on the mini nest: "As a politician, the most important value is to abide by the agreement with the people. As long as you forget for a moment, you will lose everything. People's trust. To build a society worthy of national trust and an advanced country recognized by other countries, the most basic thing is to be able to make several responsible agreements and make a lot of efforts to abide by the agreements. Small interests will destroy big interests, Small wisdom will obscure great wisdom. Don't just focus on a small corner, but have the wisdom to see the whole, so as to reach the realm we yearn for. Our society talks about 'democracy', 'reform' and 'innovation' , but if you can’t keep even small promises, it means that you have no basic philosophy, just like you can’t ride a bicycle but shouted to ride a motorcycle. Even if we can forget, we can’t distort the good faith promises that others want to abide by.”

After the passage of this law, some people in the party still said that the GNP’s power in the future will make the administrative center complex city useless.But there is no such thing as breaking a contract in my dictionary, because the contract exists for keeping.