Interparty negotiations over constitutional amendments broke down again yesterday, with young protesters, angry over the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) refusal to separately review controversial amendments on the last day of the legislative session, attempting to storm into KMT caucus whip Lai Shyh-bao’s (賴士葆) office.
The Legislative Yuan had its last plenary meeting yesterday, which was already extended for the legislature to pass the amendments in time for a referendum on the reforms to take place alongside the presidential and legislative elections on Jan. 16. The failure to pass the amendments means the referendum will not take place as planned.
The party caucuses held negotiations yesterday morning intending to iron out the disagreements on how the constitutional amendments should be handled.
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus said it proposed that constitutional amendments on which the parties have reached a consensus, such as the lowering of the voting age to 18 and the lowering of the threshold for parties to secure representation in the legislature, be passed in time for the administrative procedures required by the referendum.
It accused the KMT caucus of lacking sincerity with its insistence on bundling amendments for simultaneous legislative passage.
DPP caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) said Lai stressed that it was the KMT leadership pressing for the bundling of the legislature’s power to confirm the premier and absentee voting — the two items that the KMT believes to be the most pressing, but which the DPP opposes — with the lowering of the voting age.
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
Ker alleged that Lai even proposed a delay to the presidential election — but not the legislative election — which would relieve the pressure for prompt passage of the constitutional amendments, because the referendum, which has to be scheduled on the same day as the elections to guarantee a 50 percent voter turnout for the vote to be valid, could then be postponed to be held with the rescheduled presidential election.
Ker said the KMT, which is likely to nominate Deputy Legislative Speaker Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) as its presidential candidate, expects a significant challenge for KMT legislative candidates (especially in the south), and that postponing the presidential election — which could allow at least another month for interparty negotiations on the constitutional amendments — would likely reduce Hung’s impact on the legislative election for KMT candidates.
Lai denied proposing the postponement, saying it was put forward by People First Party Legislator Thomas Lee (李桐豪), who, according to Lai, asked DPP Chairperson and presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to promise that she would support allowing the legislature to confirm the premiership.
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
Lai added that legislative regulations state that bills, unless already having a consensus, could not be put to a vote within one month of negotiations.
A group of young people walked into the building housing legislators’ offices early yesterday afternoon and demanded that Lai answer questions on the issue.
After a standoff with police outside Lai’s office, they were thrown out, with protester Wang Yi-kai (王奕凱) arrested on charges of assault on a police officer.
The protesters demanded to see evidence of Wang’s offense, but said it was not provided.
The police escorted Wang to a patrol car and were able to leave only after a confrontation, in which the protesters blocked the car by lying down in front of it.
DPP Legislator Yu Mei-nu (尤美女) later said that KMT lawmakers failed to appear at an interparty negotiation session scheduled for the afternoon, adding that Lai told her that negotiations were not possible, because of a party leadership directive.
The last general assembly meeting ended at about 6pm, with lawmakers from both parties holding banners and shouting slogans denouncing each other for obstructing the constitutional reforms.
Right-wing political scientist Laura Fernandez on Sunday won Costa Rica’s presidential election by a landslide, after promising to crack down on rising violence linked to the cocaine trade. Fernandez’s nearest rival, economist Alvaro Ramos, conceded defeat as results showed the ruling party far exceeding the threshold of 40 percent needed to avoid a runoff. With 94 percent of polling stations counted, the political heir of outgoing Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves had captured 48.3 percent of the vote compared with Ramos’ 33.4 percent, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal said. As soon as the first results were announced, members of Fernandez’s Sovereign People’s Party
MORE RESPONSIBILITY: Draftees would be expected to fight alongside professional soldiers, likely requiring the transformation of some training brigades into combat units The armed forces are to start incorporating new conscripts into combined arms brigades this year to enhance combat readiness, the Executive Yuan’s latest policy report said. The new policy would affect Taiwanese men entering the military for their compulsory service, which was extended to one year under reforms by then-president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in 2022. The conscripts would be trained to operate machine guns, uncrewed aerial vehicles, anti-tank guided missile launchers and Stinger air defense systems, the report said, adding that the basic training would be lengthened to eight weeks. After basic training, conscripts would be sorted into infantry battalions that would take
GROWING AMBITIONS: The scale and tempo of the operations show that the Strait has become the core theater for China to expand its security interests, the report said Chinese military aircraft incursions around Taiwan have surged nearly 15-fold over the past five years, according to a report released yesterday by the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Department of China Affairs. Sorties in the Taiwan Strait were previously irregular, totaling 380 in 2020, but have since evolved into routine operations, the report showed. “This demonstrates that the Taiwan Strait has become both the starting point and testing ground for Beijing’s expansionist ambitions,” it said. Driven by military expansionism, China is systematically pursuing actions aimed at altering the regional “status quo,” the department said, adding that Taiwan represents the most critical link in China’s
EMERGING FIELDS: The Chinese president said that the two countries would explore cooperation in green technology, the digital economy and artificial intelligence Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday called for an “equal and orderly multipolar world” in the face of “unilateral bullying,” in an apparent jab at the US. Xi was speaking during talks in Beijing with Uruguayan President Yamandu Orsi, the first South American leader to visit China since US special forces captured then-Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro last month — an operation that Beijing condemned as a violation of sovereignty. Orsi follows a slew of leaders to have visited China seeking to boost ties with the world’s second-largest economy to hedge against US President Donald Trump’s increasingly unpredictable administration. “The international situation is fraught
RSS