DPP wants coordination with Cabinet and party

New DPP Cabinet members yesterday briefed the party's Central Standing Committee (中常會), which shaped the new mechanism for coordination between the party and the Cabinet, comprising the party's existing Forum for Party and Political Negotiation (黨政協商會報) and its Central Standing Committee.

The Cabinet members included Premier Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄), Cabinet Secretary-General Chiou I-jen (邱義仁) and Vice Minister of Education Fan Sun-lu (范巽綠).

"The president agreed that major [national] policymaking should revert to and be endorsed by the party's Central Standing Committee," said DPP Chairman Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) after his weekly meeting with President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) yesterday afternoon.

"I think the coordination mechanism between the party and the Cabinet should be reinforced. However, more discussions should be undertaken on the type of reinforcements," Chang said yesterday, adding that "I will attend the Central Standing Committee meetings in the future if necessary."

After the new Cabinet was formed, party Secretary-General Wu Nai-jen (吳乃仁) publicly suggested that Cabinet members should attend committee meetings and report to it on government policy, giving the party greater involvement in the policymaking process. Some DPP legislators yesterday also submitted various suggestions to the committee regarding how the mechanism might be strengthened. Yesterday's committee meeting did not reach any consensus despite lively debate.

"[We will] maintain the function of the present Forum for Party and Political Negotiation and strengthen the negotiation and interaction between the Cabinet and the party's legislative caucus," Hsieh said yesterday after the committee meeting, adding that members of the government should talk to legislators in order to expand legislators' participation in policymaking.

Hsieh also said the role of the party should be to fully support the government, to integrate opinion within the party and to win elections so that the party's "ruling foundation" (執政基礎) would be expanded.

In addition, yesterday's party forum was attended, as it will be in future, by DPP members of the government, including the secretary-general to the president, Yu Shyi-kun, representing the Presidential Office, and the Cabinet secretary-general, Chiou, representing the Cabinet, to exchange views on national policies with party leaders, including Hsieh and Wu.

As for the 2001 national spending plan, the party yesterday also urged the new Cabinet to increase budgets for economic measures in order to expand domestic demand and to boost the country's future economic prospects.

Chang, however, said that allocations in the new Cabinet's spending plan would not be changed drastically.