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National Assembly Speaker Mun Hee-sang
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Conservative opposition maintain ratification should occur after denuclearization
According to a recent poll, more than 70 percent of South Koreans think that the National Assembly should ratify the Panmunjom Declaration, which was signed by South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on Apr. 27. In a poll of 1,005 adults around the country that Gallup Korea carried out from Apr. 21 to 22 at the request of the office of National Assembly Speaker Mun Hee-sang, 71.8 percent of respondents said that the Panmunjom Declaration ought to be ratified, while just 13.6 percent said it shouldn’t be ratified. Support for and opposition to ratification roughly aligned with the percentage of respondents who thought the two inter-Korean summits had gone well (73.5 percent) and those who thought they hadn’t (14.3 percent). In the same poll, 87 percent of respondents said that the National Assembly has an important role to play in the areas of foreign policy and security, while 9.3 percent said that it doesn’t. The poll had a sample error of ±3.1 percentage points and a reliability of 95 percent Moon Hee-sang, who took office as National Assembly Speaker last month, has been pressing the National Assembly to ratify the declaration and hinting that he may bring it to a vote. But the Liberty Korea Party is opposed to ratifying the declaration until the Korean Peninsula is denuclearized, while the Bareunmirae Party is also maintaining its reserve, making it unclear whether a vote will actually be held. By Kim Tae-gyu, staff reporter Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]
