Print

Mail

wiki links

Lu says president must choose his own premier

Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) yesterday said that people should stop guessing who the new premier will be, as it is the president's right to retain or replace the nation's premier.

Lu made the comments at a tea party yesterday afternoon. She hinted that Premier Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄) was likely to remain in the post. She also said that it was necessary for the premier to reshuffle the Cabinet.

As for the post of the Legislative Yuan speaker, Lu said that the KMT was no longer the majority party in the legislature and candidates for the positions of Legislative Yuan speaker and deputy speaker should therefore be decided through negotiations between the largest party, the DPP, and the second largest party, the KMT.

"This is the new thinking after the year-end elections," Lu said yesterday afternoon.

Lu also said that both President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) "cross-party alliance for national stability" and former president Lee Teng-hui's (李登輝) Taiwan Advocates movement were actually based on the assumption that the DPP wouldn't be the largest party in the legislature following the polls. With the ruling party's major victory in the elections, however, the two groupings should not be emphasized anymore, as it makes more sense for the ruling party to return to concentrating its efforts on operating within the governmental system.

Both KMT Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) and PFP Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) expressed similar opinions earlier.

In response to Lu's words, some presidential aides yesterday said that the president had a different view on the issue, stressing that the aforementioned remarks were only Lu's personal opinions.

According to Chen's aides yesterday, it was still necessary for the president to form a stability alliance because the DPP only has a plurality in the legislature, not an outright majority.

At a press conference, also yesterday, Lu said China's new leaders should in the future discard the country's confrontational rhetoric and promote friendly relations between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait.

"The people of Taiwan have used their votes to clearly tell the world that cross-strait relations should be dealt with under the leadership of President Chen Shui-bian," Lu said.

Lu said she hopes that Beijing's future leaders will study the trend and restart positive cross-strait relations against a backdrop of increasing globalization.

Translated by Eddy Chang and Jackie Lin
This story has been viewed 2219 times.