Last Friday's legislative chaos may have helped the Democratic Progressive Party block the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) bid to restructure the Central Election Commission (CEC) in its favor, but the behavior of lawmakers on both sides, but particularly in the pan-green camp, has done yet more damage to the nation's image overseas and, more importantly, the quest for legislative harmony.
The KMT's restructuring amendment is an attempt to prevent the CEC, which it charges as being tainted by partisan bias, from holding a referendum on how the state should recover the assets the party illegally accumulated during its 40 years of one party rule.
The KMT also says it is concerned that combining this year's legislative election with a referendum on such a contentious issue will impact on the pan-blue vote, as it believes happened in the 2004 presidential election, when a plebiscite on relations with China and its ballistic missile threat was held in tandem with the main election.
This is also the KMT's latest attempt to use its strength at the local level to bypass the executive and consolidate control of the nation's institutions in the legislature, where the party enjoys a majority.
But the amendment the KMT is seeking to push through, which allows parties to nominate commission members in proportion to their number of legislative seats, will likely see the CEC suffer the same fate as the National Communications Commission, which was declared unconstitutional by The Council of Grand Justices shortly after the pan-blue camp pushed through identical legislation.
If the KMT wants to stop the CEC from holding a referendum in tandem with December's election then it should resort to means other than trying to bully its amendment through the chamber at the expense of all others laws.
It should not obstruct important government budgets as a form of bargaining chip, as the delaying of the budget harms the nation as a whole, not just the pan-green camp and its supporters.
If all else fails, the KMT could use the same strategy as it did for the last referendum, when it urged the electorate to boycott the vote, causing the result to be annulled because a majority of voters failed to take part.
Alternatively, it could pre-empt any future referendum and work with the opposition to settle the assets issue in a transparent fashion by establishing a truly independent panel to decide how to deal with the thorny issue.
KMT Chairman Ma Ying-jeou's (
The KMT needs to resolve the asset issue once and for all, because until it is dealt with in a manner satisfactory to all parties then it is unlikely to go away. Its illegally accumulated wealth is the one issue that the pan-greens can continue to beat the party with.
It remains to be seen whether an extra legislative session will be held or not, but any session will be inconsequential as long as the differences between the parties bring the whole lawmaking process to a standstill.
For if the KMT carries on with its stubborn strategy of delaying all other legislation in the name of preventing a referendum on its assets, then it will only give the public reason to believe that it really does have something to hide.
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