Constitutional ruling a calculated risk

In its effort to rescue President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), the DPP will ask the Council of Grand Justices to decide whether the Cabinet's decision to scrap the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant was constitutional.

Party leaders have concluded that the worst possible outcome of the move would be that they would have to remove Premier Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄) from office.

"If the Council of Grand Justices' interpretation reinforces the Executive Yuan's decision to scrap the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant, the three major opposition parties will have no reason to recall the president," said DPP Legislator Hong Chi-chang (洪奇昌), "and even if the constitutional interpretation says that the Executive Yuan's announcement is unconstitutional, only Chang will have to take responsibility by resigning."

Hong, leader of the DPP's New Tide faction, said that applying for the constitutional interpretation carried the potential advantage of removing the president from the fray, confining the dispute to the Cabinet and opposition lawmakers.

He also said that the president had turned the situation around and secured a majority of voters' support after making a public apology to the nation and KMT Chairman Lien Chan (連戰).

"If the president maintains a low profile, avoiding further mistakes, and if the DPP does not provoke the opposition parties," Hong said, "then Chen will survive this crisis."

DPP Chairman Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) yesterday said that applying for a constitutional interpretation was the best means to solve the crisis with minimum cost to Taiwan's society.

"The recall action proposed by the three opposition parties is a radical, extreme strategy, which never received the support of a majority of voters from the start, although the president's support rating in public polls did drop," Hsieh said.

Hong said that Chen had made mistakes in deciding to announce the halt of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant, adding that close aides to the president had requested that he "not step on the front line" any more.

"On the strategy level, the president misjudged, thinking that the three opposition parties could not successfully unite, and insisted on announcing the halt to the power station as soon as possible," Hong said. "Then, on the tactical level, the president declared this decision at an inappropriate time, only half an hour after a high-profile meeting with KMT Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) in which they had discussed how to solve the dispute over the nuclear power plant," Hong added.

Sources at the Presidential Office said that Chen did "worry" about being recalled when he saw the three major opposition parties successfully unite with a vow of cooperation.

"We suggested that the president apologize publicly but stand absolutely firm on the DPP's anti-nuclear stance," the sources said. "And we decided to apply for a constitutional interpretation by the Council of Grand Justices only if the opposition parties formally tried to propose recalling Chen."

The opposition lawmakers did pass a non-binding resolution during the Legislative Yuan meeting on Tuesday, recommending that the Control Yuan impeach the premier.

"We had already predicted that scenario during our crisis meeting," the Presidential Office source said, "and we concluded that applying for the constitutional interpretation would satisfy our need to have Chen emerge from this chaos without a direct fight with opposition parties."