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New premier agrees to recall the budget bill

The Legislative Yuan yesterday decided the Executive Yuan should retract its budget bill for fiscal year 2001, submitted by Tang Fei's (唐飛) Cabinet, and will accept another from Premier Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄), who assumed the post yesterday.

The request was immediately accepted by Chang, who promised that the budget bill would be retracted today.

Legislative Yuan speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) said the decision, based on an inter-party consensus, was formulated to cope with the Cabinet reshuffle following Tang's sudden resignation on Tuesday.

"To abide by the spirit of the Constitution and safeguard the public interest, we request the Executive Yuan re-examine its budget bill for fiscal year 2001, as well as its policy proposal before sending them to the legislature for review," Wang said.

This is the first time that a premier has stepped down when the central government's budget bill is under review in the Legislative Yuan.

Tang had presented the bill to the legislature four days before his resignation, and the bill was initially set to move on to committees for review next week.

Tseng Yung-chuan (曾永權), whip of the majority KMT caucus in the legislature, said it was logical for the Executive Yuan to retract the bill now that the Cabinet is going to be reshuffled, because a budget bill is supposed to represent the policies of the premier and his Cabinet ministers.

"When the premier has been replaced, there is a need to check if any adjustment should be made to the policy priorities," Tseng said.

The process is expected to delay the passage of the budget bill. According to the Budget Law, the central government's budget bill should pass the legislature by late November at the latest in readiness for the start of the next fiscal year on Jan. 1.

In the case of a delay, however, the Executive Yuan can draw on money from the budget in advance to cover personnel and current expenses to prevent a shutdown of the government.

Chang, the incumbent vice premier and a former legislator, said his Cabinet would submit a new budget bill to the legislature as soon as possible.

Chang said there would not be any major changes in terms of the Cabinet's policy priorities, though some minor adjustments would be made to the budget bill to include new measures such as a pay cuts for the president and vice president.

Chang promised he would strengthen communication with lawmakers to try to improve the interaction between the administrative and legislative branches.

"Hopefully our political culture, which is based mainly on antagonism, will be changed and move toward one based on mutual trust and interaction," Chang said.

Opposition lawmakers, however, were pessimistic about the new Cabinet.

Lai Shyh-bao (賴士葆), convener of the New Party caucus, predicted that President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) administration would continue to face challenges from a strong opposition in the legislature because of its refusal to form a coalition with any opposition party.

"The appointment of Chang as the new premier is based on President Chen's personal will and is unhelpful to political stability," Lai said.

Members of the KMT caucus called on Chen to administer his government under the constitutional framework and according to the principles of party politics, saying his "government for all the people" had been left "bankrupt" in the resulting political commotion.

"It's totally unconstitutional to appoint a DPP member to head the Cabinet and form a minority government," KMT Legislator Ting Shou-chung (丁守中) said.

The KMT caucus demanded that the party leadership prevent any KMT member from accepting the DPP's offer to join the Cabinet, unless such an offer was based on party-to-party negotiations.

Tang, a former minister of defense from the KMT, was appointed premier by President Chen in May in an agreement that stopped short of a DPP-KMT deal.

Tang was consequently asked not to participate in KMT activities. Disagreement between Tang and Chen, notably on whether to continue construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant, was widely thought to be the cause behind Tang's resignation.

Opposition lawmakers, meanwhile, said they would not deliberately act against the DPP administration just because it was a minority government.

"We will watch the performance of the new Cabinet," said People First Party caucus convener Chen Chen-sheng (陳振盛).
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