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The Uri Party is a political party in South Korea. The party was formerly known as the New Party for Participatory Citizens but changed its name on October 22, 2003. The name translates into English as our party and reflects the party's push for national unity and a willingness to public participation and reform according to the party. The official name of the party is Yeollin Uri Party where Yeollin translates to adjective "open" in English. That would form an acronym that reads Yeol-u Party, but that usage is discouraged by the party because that roughly means "inferior fellow" in Korean. Hence, the form Yeol-u Party is used only by the opponents of the party in a derogatory way.
The party was formed as members in the Millennium Democratic Party loyal to the president Roh Moo-hyun chose to break ranks, when they found it dissatisfactory to work with other party members who showed lukewarm support for the administration. Some 42 out of 103 MPs of the Millennium Democratic Party joined the new party, and 5 MPs from the Grand National Party also joined.
The party came to international attention when their members physically blocked the speaker's chair in the National Assembly in a failed attempt to prevent the impeachment vote on President Roh on March 12, 2004. (The vote was subsequently overturned by South Korea's Constitutional Court on May 14, 2004.)
As a result of the 2004 Parliamentary election, the Uri Party gained 152 seats from the total of 299 in the National Assembly, making a slim majority.
On August 19, 2004, the party suffered an embarassing setback when party chairman Shin Ki-nam resigned following revelations by a national investigation that his father had worked for the Japanese military police during the Japanese occupation of Korea. The investigation, initiated on the 56th anniversary of Liberation Day (August 15, 2004) by President Roh, was a part of a national campaign to shed light on the activity of collaborators during the Japanese Occupation of Korea. Ironically, the campaign was vocally supported by Mr. Shin and backed by the Uri Party.
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