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Marathon filibuster at South Korea

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In a move to oppose the anti-terrorism bill being passed in the South Korean Parliament the opposition party spoke continuously for more than 115 hours making it the longest filibuster.

Flash points

  • President Park Geun-hye’s office called for a parliamentary session to pass the stalled security bill ahead of the high tension with North Korea after their fourth nuclear test and test of long range missileRecord break by South Korea Parliament
  • This bill enables the Intelligence authorities to monitor even private conversations
  • The opposition party members feared of the privacy being hindered by this move
  • To oppose this they started the filibuster on Tuesday morning which continued till Sunday making it the longest in the world
  • It accounted for 115 hours of conversation in total
  • It surpassed the 58 hours filibuster previously by 103 members of Canada’s Democratic party in 2011
  • 23 members from the opposition party South Korea spoke on an average of 5 hours each
  • Opposition lawmaker Jung Chung Rae spoke for 11 hours and 39 minutes on Saturday making it the longest by any individual

Points to note

  • The members of the conservative ruling party Saenuri who have 157 seats out of 293, call this move by opposition parties as a delay in passage of other bills
  • This filibuster record was published in Kyunghyang Shinmun newspaper of South Korea
  • South Korea capital- Seoul
  • Next parliamentary election for South Korea to be held in April