Renewed call for caretaker Cabinet to ensure fair poll

Press, 7 October 1987, Page 10

Renewed call for caretaker Cabinet to ensure fair poll

NZPA-Reuter Seoul

The South Korean Opposition repeated a call yesterday for the formation of a caretaker Cabinet, including Opposition figures, to ensure December’s direct Presidential polls are fair.

In a keynote speech to Parliament, the Reunification Democratic Party’s vice-president, Lee Choopg-Chal, also called on the country’s powerful military to declare formally they would not intervene to disrupt democratic reform.

“To achieve a smooth, peaceful change of power by holding the Presidential election in a fair and just way, we again propose setting up a neutral coalition Cabinet for the joint management of elections by ruling and Opposition parties,” Mr Lee said.

The Government of President Chun Doo Hwan, who is due to step down when his seven-year mandate expires next February, has already turned down similar proposals as unnecessary because the present Cabinet no longer includes members of the Democratic Justice Party (D.J.P.).

Government officials note President Chun relinquished control of the D.J.P. earlier this year to help ensure the fairness of polling.

President Chun told Parliament on Monday that once the National Assembly passed a draft constitution next week heralding the first direct Presidential elections for 16 years, the Government would take every step to “hold the most exemplary election in our political history.” Mr Lee on Tuesday accused the Government of trying to rig elections by illegally using civil servants to recruit supporters

for the ruling camp, and of still curbing the press in spite of Government promises to the contrary.

He urged the Government to free what he called more than 500 jailed political dissidents and restore civil and political rights to another 500 people already released.

DJ.P.’s chief, Roh TaeWoo, President Chun’s choice as a Presidential candidate, told Parliament yesterday\the coming elections would be staged impartially to help democracy take root and to “put an end to the controversy over the legitimacy (of the present and past Governments) once and for all.” The Government and the Opposition have for years been locked in fierce confrontation, often marked by violent clashes.