President Chen Shui-bian (
During the past week, Chen's longstanding anti-nuclear stance has been sacrificed to make concessions toward the opposition's request, given the hostile political situation he is encountering.
However, before Chen makes public his intention to agree to renewed construction, he has to first win support among the anti-nuclear hardliners within the DPP.
High-level visit
Yesterday the president made his first move to meet with former DPP chairman Lin I-hsiung (林義雄), who is strongly opposed to the plant, to discuss the political circumstances he is facing and report to Lin his possible decision to accept the resumption of the construction under a set of conditions.
Lin declined to comment after the one-hour private meeting at Chen's house.
Lin is not the only figure Chen needs to convince, as other anti-nuclear DPP members continued to voice their differing opinions.
DPP Legislator and member of the New Century faction Chang Chun-hung (
"Anti-nuclear DPP members will stick to [their] position. If [we] were about to change, we would have done it a long time ago. Why wait until now?" Chang said.
"If the Presidential Office and Executive Yuan agree to renew the project, it will be because they have to give in to the dominant opposition parties. But if publicly-elected representatives can accept such thinking, they would be evaluated by history because they should not tolerate [an action] which they know would hurt future generations."
Opposition lawmakers are slated to meet today to discuss whether they will accept a "third option" proposal put forward by Chen on Friday.
During a meeting between the speaker of the Legislative Yuan, Wang Jin-pyng (
Chen suggested that construction could continue as long as a new state energy law be devised with the purpose of building a "nuclear-free" nation and the goal of decommissioning all four nuclear power plants earlier than scheduled be set. The law would also restrict the construction of any additional nuclear power plants in the future.
Another condition that Chen reportedly mentioned was that once the NT$123.8 billion budget for the project is exhausted, no additional budget would be given to the plant and the new legislature be left to decide the matter.
Wang will meet with opposition lawmakers this morning to discuss the project and whether they will accept the "third option" proposed by the president.
If opposition parties agree with Chen's suggestion, the Executive Yuan will organize provisional meetings soon to discuss how to implement the conditions of the proposed alternative.
Not optimistic
The outlook for today's meeting, however, was not very positive as opposition lawmakers continued to stick to their bottom line -- immediate resumption of the project.
The newly elected secretary-general of the KMT legislative caucus, Cheng Yung-chin (
KMT Secretary-General Lin Feng-cheng (
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