The first Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Central Standing Committee meeting chaired by president-elect Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday affirmed that the new legislative speaker would remain neutral and not be at the whim of the party.
“The legislative speaker will not attend party events, will not hold positions within the party and will not be present in negotiations between political parties,” DPP spokesperson Juan Chao-hsiung (阮昭雄) told a post-meeting press conference.
Specifically, the person holding the position would not attend party events, the DPP Central Standing Committee meetings, national congress meetings, parades and social activism events otherwise hosted by the party and cannot stump for the party nominees in elections, Juan said.
Photo: Lo Pei-der, Taipei Times
The individual would not hold any position in the party and would refrain from attending bipartisan negotiations in the legislature, or between the legislature and the Executive Yuan, unless their presence is mandated under the Constitution or is otherwise approved by the president, Juan said.
The strict neutrality of the legislative speaker is one of the five political reforms the DPP is aiming for, Juan said, adding that the decreased influence of the party over the legislative speaker would serve to keep the individual clear of party squabbles and guarantee the viability of the political system.
Voters have handed the DPP its first majority in the legislature and the party should live up to public expectations and implement legislative reforms, Juan said.
While Tsai affirmed that she would respect the DPP legislative caucus’ autonomy, she said her focus is not on whom holds the position of legislative speaker, but how the individual could remain neutral.
Meanwhile, Central Standing Committee member Frank Hsieh (謝長廷), a former premier, suggested that the DPP’s caucus should, despite Tsai’s respect for its autonomy, nonetheless discuss who would best suit the position of legislative speaker.
Hsieh said that in the past, the DPP caucus and the committe were parallel organizations, but in light of the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) caucus choosing to bow to party will over public opinion, the DPP must look to a new system to avoid repeating those mistakes.
While political commentators point to the alleged support of both the Hsieh faction and the Tsai faction for legislator-at-large-elect Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全) to become legislative speaker, Hsieh yesterday said in a Facebook post that he has not committed his support to any individual nor has he expressed such an opinion to the media.
The party should remain unified like it was before the election results and look to implement Tsai’s policies, Hsieh said, adding that any decision reached without negotiation could give the party a bad public image and sour its supporters’ expectations.
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
DEFENDING DEMOCRACY: Taiwan shares the same values as those that fought in WWII, and nations must unite to halt the expansion of a new authoritarian bloc, Lai said The government yesterday held a commemoration ceremony for Victory in Europe (V-E) Day, joining the rest of the world for the first time to mark the anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. Taiwan honoring V-E Day signifies “our growing connections with the international community,” President William Lai (賴清德) said at a reception in Taipei on the 80th anniversary of V-E Day. One of the major lessons of World War II is that “authoritarianism and aggression lead only to slaughter, tragedy and greater inequality,” Lai said. Even more importantly, the war also taught people that “those who cherish peace cannot
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on Friday expressed concern over the rate at which China is diversifying its military exercises, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday. “The rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one non-linear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night or keeps me up at night,” Paparo was quoted by FT as saying while attending the annual Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute in Arizona. Paparo also expressed concern over the speed with which China was expanding its military. While the US
RSS