With the leading parties having secured similar numbers of seats in the next National Assembly, both are seeking to court the tie-breaking minority party that has an opposition tendency and a centrist policy platform.

While The Minjoo Party of Korea is hoping to form a decision-making coalition with the second-biggest opposition People’s Party, the ruling Saenuri Party is counting on the middle-of-the-road party to support it in passing specific economic and labor reform bills.

For the Minjoo Party, with 123 out of 300 seats, its key task is to reach a consensus with the 38-seat People’s Party to attain a parliamentary majority of 150.

Such strategic unity could give them leverage if the parliamentary advancement act is revised to lower the special quorum -- required for fast track bill processing -- from 180 to 150, though such a change is unlikely to be a priority at this point.

But the People’s Party, which sees itself as a centrist balancing weight between the two leading parties, remains reticent on a number of disputed issues, including the government-driven labor reform plans.

The two opposition groups initially kicked off what seemed to be policy partnership by agreeing on extending the term of the special investigation committee of the Sewol ferry sinking and on abolishing state-issued history textbooks.

“Considering that the salvage (of the ferry) is scheduled for July, it is illogical that the committee should expire in June,” said Joo Seung-yong, lawmaker-elect and floor leader of the People’s Party on Monday.

He thereby expressed his party’s consent to the Minjoo-drafted revision bills on extending the active term of the special committee. Different bills propose to extend the term until six months after the sunken hull is salvaged or the end of June next year.

Even without the bill, both opposition parties have argued that the committee should continue until early next year, as the 18-month active period should be counted from the budget allocation in August last year. Saenuri’s view was that the committee’s term should expire in June this year, on grounds that the related bill had been passed in January last year.

The opposition cluster also reached unanimous agreement on discarding state-designated history textbooks.

“We agree (with the People’s Party) 100 percent,” said the Minjoo’s floor leader Rep. Lee Jong-kul, concerning the Sewol committee and history textbooks.

The open-armed response of the main opposition party was described by several local media as “political wooing” toward the tie-breaking party.

The clock is ticking for the Minjoo as the Saenuri Party is soon expected to resume its No. 1 position by embracing a number of defected members who won last week’s race as independent candidates.

But the range of their mutual understanding has so far been limited to social sectors. When it comes to the contentious economic revitalization and labor reform bills, the pivotal People’s Party is still reserving its official stance, carefully weighing its pros and cons in the long-term.

At the center of the inter-party dispute is the worker dispatching bill, which expands the range of short-term workers for those aged 55 or above and for specific manufacturing industries.

The government and the ruling party advocate the bills as a way of creating more jobs for the elderly and easing employment rules for small and medium-sized companies. But the opposition parties, backed by labor unions, denounced it as a pretext to promote irregular employment.

The People’s Party, on the other hand, has adopted a two-track stance. While siding with the ruling party on the other three bills -- employment insurance bill, industrial disaster bill, and labor standard bill -- the party demanded that the dispatching bill be taken back to square one, seemingly adding weight to the Minjoo’s opposition.

The trilateral parliament, along with the more left-wing minor Justice Party, which has six seats, will be dealing with the economic and labor bills over the extraordinary session to be held from this week to mid-May, according to the National Assembly secretariat.

By Bae Hyun-jung (tellme@heraldcorp.com)