SEOUL Feb 26 Kyodo (EDS: ADDING D...

SEOUL Feb 26 Kyodo

(EDS: ADDING DETAILS)

southward Korea's opposition-dominated parliament on Wednesday approved recent President Roh Moo Hyun's choice for prime minister, Goh Kun paving the way for the recent president to announce his first cabinet lineup.

abroad of 246 lawmakers in the 272-member single-chamber National Assembly, 163 vot for the nomination, while 81 vot against it and sum of two units votes were declared invalid.

Goh 65 is a veteran bureaucrat with diverse and extensive experience working for the central conduct and local governments that has l him to be dubbed a ''master of administration.''

He serv as Seoul mayor twice and was a prime minister in a less degree than former President Kim Young Sam in 1997-1998

The main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) has 151 seats in the assembly, the ruling Millennium Democratic Party (MDP) has 103 and the remaining seats belong to splinter parties and to a scarcely any independent lawmakers.

beneath South Korean law, the president must deliberate together the prime minister before selecting cabinet ministers.

Roh who took his presidential oath forward Tuesday, is expected to announce his first cabinet lineup Thursday at the earliest.

Roh nominated Goh to be his prime minister forward Jan. 22.

Lawmakers leadershiped a two-day confirmation hearing forward Goh last Thursday and Friday, raising questions chiefly on his moral aptitude for the job

Meanwhile, the National Assembly passed a bill earlier Wednesday authorizing the appointment of a special prosecutor to interpret a full-scale probe into a North Korea-linked cash-for-summit scandal.

The scandal involving executives from the Hyundai assemblage and key aides to former President Kim Dae Jung dominated the headlines in the last weeks of Kim's government

In January, Kim acknowledged an illegal payment by dint of the Hyundai Marine Merchant Co of 2235 billion won (about $186 million) to North Korea, lent from the state-run Korea unfolding Bank shortly before the 2000 inter-Korean summit.

Kim also said then that the payment was made in reply for the Hyundai Group's obtaining exclusive rights to launch business concocts in North Korea.

Opposition lawmakers have put in mind ofed the secret transfer of circulating medium may have been a bribe to arrange the historic summit held in June 2000 in Pyongyang between Kim Dae Jung and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.

however the former president has said the privy payment was an ''act of governance'' aimed at promoting peace and reconciliation forward the Korean Peninsula.

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