(Seoul Sinmun editorial from that period urging lawmakers to heed expert counsel on the introduction of the Basic Pension)

(omitted)

Nevertheless, both Saenuri Party and the Democratic Party remain singularly fixated on electoral strategy.

The Basic Pension Act is being exploited as a campaign card or dragged into partisan combat, leaving its passage date entirely uncertain due to the ulterior motives of both the ruling and opposition parties.

The question of whether to link the Basic Pension Act to the National Pension has been a subject of fierce debate since the second half of last year, yet the failure of the two parties to find common ground can only be attributed to strategic political calculation.

Experts have put forward numerous alternatives, but their counsel has fallen on deaf ears.

As one example, rather than linking the National Pension and the Basic Pension, the provision stipulating "payment to 70% of those aged 65 and over" could either be deleted from the main statute

or incorporated into the implementing decree or regulations—

counsel offered by Yoon Seok-myeong, Director of the Pension Research Center at the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs (KIHASA), through the Seoul Sinmun on the 14th.

The extreme confrontation between the ruling and opposition parties is more than sufficient to raise suspicion that their true aim is to shift blame onto each other in the local elections and to harvest more votes from the elderly.

Members of the National Assembly must speak through legislation.

The interests of partisan politics and the role of members of the legislature must be kept distinct.

If the legislature—the elected branch of power—fails to perform its proper function even in processing bills that directly affect people's livelihoods, voters will have no recourse but to hold it accountable through the ballot box.

https://m.seoul.co.kr/news/editOpinion/editorial/2014/02/22/20140222027015