Anchor: The National Assembly is failing Monday's deadline to pass next year's budget as rival parties remain at odds over controversial fast-tracked bills on election and judicial reforms. It's unclear if the last parliamentary plenary session of the year will even open as the ruling party keeps it closed to prevent the main opposition from launching a filibuster.
Kim Bum-soo has the latest.   

Report: The South Korean parliament continues to be paralyzed on this Monday. 

With the main opposition camp set to launch a filibuster, the ruling and smaller opposition parties are keeping the floor closed for a plenary session that was slated to kick off last week.

During his party's supreme council meeting earlier in the day, ruling Democratic Party Chair Lee Hae-chan urged the main opposition to scrap its political tactics.

[Sound bite: Democratic Party Chairman Lee Hae-chan (Korean)] 
"With heads being shaved, hunger strikes and filibusters taking place, can we call this a parliament? If a plenary session was held on Friday without knowing that those schemes would be staged, what would have happened? The regular parliamentary session would have been wasted while doing nothing. If you paralyze the function of a government agency and do as you wish, that's a coup...."     

The chairman of the main opposition camp, Hwang Kyo-ahn, argued during a LKP leadership meeting held in front of the presidential office that it is the ruling party that is blocking the passage of non-contentious bills.   

[Sound bite: Liberty Korea Party Chairman Hwang Kyo-ahn (Korean)]  
"The national budget, 'Min-sik's law' and other urgent public livelihood bills shall pass with priority. The ruling party is instigating lies that the opposition is blocking these bills. That's not true. It is an illegal, anti-democratic move to prevent a filibuster, which is legally guaranteed by National Assembly law."   

The current stalemate is due to differences over fast-tracked revisions to the nation's election law and the creation of a new anti-corruption investigator. 

The ruling and minor opposition parties teamed up to fast track the bills in April, despite fierce protests from the LKP. The main opposition believes the election bill will work only to the advantage of the ruling Democratic Party and the minor Justice Party, and that the envisioned investigative authority will be full of progressive lawyers working at the behest of the president.   

Amid recent allegations that the presidential office meddled in last year's Ulsan mayoral election, the LKP has bolstered its argument that the Moon Jae-in administration's political scandals will be buried if a new state investigator is established and works on the side of the ruling camp.
Kim Bum-soo, KBS World Radio News.