Cross-party negotiations on legislative agenda fail

Cross-party negotiations on a political donations bill broke up yesterday when the pan-blue camp sought to skirt the issue of legislative reform.

Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) announced yesterday morning that talks had led to a decision to turn the question and answer session scheduled for March 12 into a session to review the bills and that the bill governing political donations would get top priority.

Wang also announced that the legislature would recess a week before the March 20 election.

However, both the pan-blue and pan-green camps later denied they had reached any agreement during the negotiations and blamed each other for the impasse.

The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus said the talks failed because the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) added articles to the agreement without opposition approval.

The KMT warned that the green camp would have to shoulder responsibility if the bill governing political donations is not passed before the election.

KMT caucus leader Liao Feng-te (廖風德) said the conclusions Wang announced were only signed by PFP representative Lin Chun-te (林春德), KMT policy convener Tseng Yung-chuan (曾永權) and himself.

Liao said that no pan-green representative signed, and that the green camp added words to the agreement after Wang left the talks, resulting in the failure of negotiations.

According to the written agreement shown by Liao, the clauses said that the political party bill and the draft for the Statute Regarding the Establishment and Management of the Financial Reconstruction Fund (金融重建基金設置及管理條例) should be considered at the same time as the bill governing political donations and bill on downsizing the legislature.

The pan-green camp said that if the legislature wanted to recess before the election, all caucuses should sign the bill for halving the number of legislative seats.

"There is no way that we will recess before the election if the bill is not signed," DPP whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) said.

Ker added that, while the green camp had signed the bill, no one from the pan-blue camp had signed.

The bill is stuck in the Constitutional Amendment Committee and shows no sign of progressing, although all leading politicians in the country have shown support for it. If all legislative caucus leaders sign the bill, it can get out of the committee stage and get its second and third readings in the legislature.

"If we are going to have extra sittings to consider the bills, then it is not possible that we will deal with only the bill governing political donations. The political party bill and the amended draft for the Statute Regarding the Establishment and Management of the Financial Reconstruction Fund should be considered at the same time," Ker said.

Meanwhile, Premier Yu Shyi-kun met former Democratic Progressive Party chairman Lin I-hsiung (林義雄) outside the legislature yesterday to show his support for legislative reform. Lin is on a hunger strike to promote the downsizing of the legislature.

TSU caucus leader Chen Chien-ming (陳建銘) led all his party's legislators except one, who was in his constituency, in sitting with Lin for two hours to show their support.

The cross-party talks will continue next week.

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