MDP picks new leader amid GNP boycott.

(From The Korea Herald)

By Lee Joo-hee Tension engulfed politics last week as the main opposition Grand National Party began to boycott the National Assembly sessions after the president vetoed a special counsel bill that would target his close aides implicated in scandals. The GNP's leader Choe Byung-yul heightened political anxiety by going on a hunger strike against the president's decision.

In the meantime, the No. 2 parliamentary group, the Millennium Democratic Party, elected five-term lawmaker Rep. Chough Soon-hyung as its new leader, who has earned respect from both the young and old party members.

As a slap in the face to the GNP, President Roh Moo-hyun on Tuesday vetoed the bill on a special probe of corruption allegations of his former aides, which the GNP-led National Assembly authorized earlier last month. Roh's anticipated decision prompted some 103 lawmakers from the main opposition party to submit their resignations - which were never tendered - and all 149 GNP legislators to boycott Assembly sessions the next day.

In what they called an "all-out war" against the president, the lawmakers planned overnight rallies to call for Roh's impeachment, while the party's chairman Rep. Choe Byung-yul began to fast on Wednesday in his demand for the president to withdraw his rejection.

The party refused to put the bill to a revote, as it should be done under the constitution, arguing that it is their way of shunning the president's decision to veto the bill.

The other two opposition parties, the MDP and the United Liberal Democrats, who helped the GNP pass the special counsel bill initially, remained distant from the GNP's actions, and ...