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Kweon Seong-dong, floor leader of the People Power Party, reads a statement related to an agreement to arbitrate on legislation on stripping the prosecution service of investigative authority at a meeting of the party’s supreme council on April 25. (pool photo)

A move by the People Power Party (PPP) to backpedal on an agreement with the Democratic Party and call for renewed discussions on a bill that would separate the investigation and indictment powers currently held by the prosecution service has prompted an outcry from the Democratic Party, which declared its plans to pass the legislation unilaterally.

The two sides now appear to be racing toward another full-scale collision as the PPP attempts to back out of its agreement in response to the position of President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol, who opposes the legislation.

After discussions lasting over an hour and a half at the National Assembly Monday morning, the PPP supreme council agreed to hold renewed discussions on its agreement concerning the separation of prosecutors’ investigative powers. The reversal came three days after the agreement between the two parties’ floor leaders was reached on Friday through the mediation of National Assembly Speaker Park Byeong-seug.

PPP floor leader Kweon Seong-dong, who had signed the agreement, said at a supreme council meeting Monday that he had “chosen the lesser evil in developing an arbitration plan as floor leader of the minority party in order to minimize the damages to the public.”

“I think that the ruling and opposition parties need to put our heads together and hold new discussions on crimes related to public officials and elections,” he said, signaling a change of stance.

The shift from the PPP is a reflection of President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol’s negative attitude toward the elimination of prosecutors’ investigative authority.

After demanding a “renewed discussion of the agreement” the day before, PPP leader Lee Jun-seok confirmed in a telephone conversation with Minister of Justice nominee Han Dong-hoon that Kweon had signed the agreement without sufficient support from Yoon.

Having previously distanced himself from discussions on the hot button issue, Yoon has been sending a message of clear opposition since the weekend.

Chang Je-won, Yoon’s chief of staff, said Monday that Yoon’s “thoughts have not changed at all since his remarks at the time he stepped down as prosecutor general, when he described the removal of prosecutors’ investigation powers as the ‘epitome of corruption’ and stressed that the ‘passage of legislation stripping the prosecutors of their investigation authority is a severe violation of the spirit of the Constitution and a dereliction of the duty of the state and government to uphold the constitutional spirit.’”

The president-elect’s spokesperson, Bae Hyun-jin, similarly quoted Yoon as saying that “even the Democratic Party is not likely to force the legislation through singlehandedly amid all these concerns from the public.”

As recently as the evening before, Lee and Kweon had expressed different views on whether the agreement should be subject to renewed discussions. But as Yoon’s views became more evident, the PPP shifted course toward backpedaling on the agreement.

Objecting strongly to the PPP backing out of the agreement, the Democratic Party declared that it plans to go ahead with passing the legislation according to the original agreement.

“This flip-flopping from Yoon Suk-yeol’s transition committee and the PPP is a provocation that is an insult to National Assembly agreements and a repudiation of bipartisan governance,” said floor leader Park Hong-keun in a meeting of the party’s emergency committee.

Democratic Party plans to hold a regular session on Thursday or Friday to pass the bill, Park said, after finishing work on the provisions in the Prosecutors’ Office Act and other legislation in the Legislation and Judiciary Committee this week as agreed upon with the PPP.

For the Democratic Party to pass the arbitration plan on its own, it will need to go through procedures with the Legislation and Judiciary Committee’s legislation review subcommittee, the agenda coordination committee, a plenary session, and a regular session before it is presented at the last Cabinet meeting of Moon Jae-in’s presidency on May 3.

On Monday evening, the party began work on clearing the first step toward passing the legislation — namely, review by the Legislation and Judiciary Committee.

The PPP’s decision to back out of the agreement suggests that domestic politics are in for a deep chill as Yoon prepares to take office.

The Democratic Party is taking the shift as a sign that the PPP is washing its hands of “cooperative governance.” In particular, critics are decrying the move as a “disregard for parliamentarism by an imperial president-elect.”

“Since Han Dong-hoon put up his ‘ad balloon’ and the transition committee ran with it, the party is now backpedaling at a single word from the president-elect,” said Cha Jae-won, a distinguished professor at the Catholic University of Pusan.

“This amounts to abandoning ‘unity’ and ‘cooperative governance’ from the very outset of [Yoon’s] term and inviting a confrontation,” he concluded.

“They’ve made it abundantly clear that they view the party as a ‘branch office’ of the Blue House,” he added.

By Jang Na-rye, staff reporter; Song Chae Kyung-hwa, staff reporter; Shim Wu-sam, staff reporter

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