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The National Assembly has finally endorsed the political reform bills, which call for, among other things, the elimination of 26 Assembly seats, through a crucial vote by rival lawmakers.

The parliamentary approval put an end to 14 months of negotiations between the ruling and opposition parties on the political reform measures, which analysts said were hampered by partisan interests.

The revised political laws contain reform measures like the reduction of Assembly seats and a mandatory allocation of 30 percent of the 46 proportional representation seats to women.

In a vote Tuesday night, the Assembly rejected a proposal by the opposition Grand National Party (GNP) to remove only 16 seats from the National Assembly and approved the ruling coalition parties' proposal to slash 26.

This marks the first time in Korean history that political parties have eliminated seats in the unicameral legislative house amid normal political conditions.

Both the ruling and opposition parties had refused to downsize the 299-member Assembly but were eventually forced to bow to the mounting public demand for legislators to shoulder the burden of reform.

The proposal by the ruling Millennium Democratic Party (MDP) to adopt a "one-person, two-vote" system was defeated, as its coalition partner, the United Liberal Democrats (ULD), made an unusual decision to join forces with the opposition GNP to vote down the bill in the Assembly session.

Accordingly, the April 13 general elections will be held under the current single ballot system, in which proportional representation seats are allocated to political parties in proportion to the number of votes their candidates gain in a direct ballot.

Other key reform measures include legalizing the "rejection" campaign conducted by civic groups targeting politicians they judge unfit to be nominated.

But the revised election law is expected to draw unfavorable reactions from civic groups as they are still banned from conducting petition drives or holding outdoor rallies.

The rival parties also introduced an unprecedented parliamentary confirmation hearing for appointees to key government posts, including the prime minister-designate.

Despite the inclusion of some reform measures in the revised political laws, most analysts accused the political parties of having failed to "sufficiently" reflect the public demand for concrete political change.

They pointed out that the parties had ignored calls for them to overhaul their old-fashioned and undemocratic operations, including the abolishment of local party chapters.

Political parties' operating hundreds of local chapters has been at the root of Korea's "high-cost and low-efficiency" politics.

Furthermore, the parties failed to take any action to change their traditional "closed door" candidate nomination methods, dashing popular hopes for a more transparent process.

"The passed political reform bills look like a mixture of partisan interests and public demands," said one political watcher.

The rival parties started to discuss political reform measures in December 1998, but their negotiations made little progress due to their conflicting interests.

Enraged by the parties' hesitance to reform politics, civic groups rose up last month and have waged an unprecedented rejection campaign to oust corrupt and incompetent politicians.

Stunned by the civic uprising, the parties hurriedly proposed joint political reform bills but failed to meet popular demands.

Faced with a public outcry, the parties had renegotiated the bills but could not reach an agreement because of differences on some key points, including the scope of the reduction of Assembly seats. The failure eventually led the Assembly to vote on individual bills proposed by the three major parties.

As the parties spent most of time negotiating political reform measures, other key bills on anti-corruption, prevention of authorities abusing wiretapping, and human rights were not enacted.