Rival political parties clashed during a parliamentary confirmation hearing over whether the nomination of former MBC journalist Lee Jin-sook as new chair of the Korea Communications Commission(KCC) is appropriate.

At the start of the hearing on Wednesday, Lee herself pledged to make use of her experiences from working as a broadcaster and to faithfully carry out the KCC's duty to ensure that public broadcasters fulfill their social responsibility of objective news reporting.

The main opposition Democratic Party(DP) slammed the nominee as being unqualified for the job, speculating that she will likely push ahead appointments of board members at the public broadcasters under what it called the KCC's currently "illegal" two-person structure.

The ruling People Power Party(PPP) stressed that the two-person system is not unlawful and that vacancies on the commission have yet to be filled due to the opposition's failure to make candidate recommendations.

Lee, for her part, refuted the DP's claim that she had improperly used a corporate credit card while heading MBC's regional station in Daejeon. She recognized some of her past controversial remarks when she was a civilian had been politically biased, but that she intends to maintain neutrality while in public service.