If opposition lawmakers leaving the legislature at midnight on Wednesday had one thing thing in common, it was condemnation for Chou Po-lun (周伯倫).
Chou, convener of the DPP legislative caucus for the just-concluded legislative session, has never failed to grasp media attention.
Since his political career began, he has developed a reputation as a provocative man with a razor tongue -- and his stinging comments have come in particularly handy during the past four months.
"He is a figure who has been a very big headache for the opposition parties, and some DPP members also feel uneasy with his unpredictability. But he is undoubtedly a resourceful politician," observed Wong Chin-chu (翁金珠), who worked closely with Chou as deputy convener of the DPP caucus.
During the session, which began in February and ended last Wednesday, hardly a single week passed without controversy.
In the very first round of negotiation with opposition lawmakers in February, Chou attempted to squeeze a sensitive referendum law onto the legislature's list of priority legislation.
In March, Chou publicly criticized opposition lawmakers for deliberately stalling over 100 legislative bills submitted by the Executive Yuan, a move which prompted Legislative Yuan Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) to personally defend the actions of the legislature in a special address to the media.
scorched earth
In an even more extreme action taken against independent legislator Liao Hsueh-kuang's (廖學廣) continual efforts to veto the Executive Yuan's bills in April, Chou resorted to a scorched earth policy and killed all other bills put forth by opposition lawmakers in retaliation, vowing to let them "all die together."
The tactic may have been successful in drawing public attention to problems in the Legislative Yuan and exert pressure on the opposition parties, but it also invited public criticism that the DPP was failing in its role to act responsibility as the ruling party.
Instead of conducting negotiating effectively with the opposition lawmakers, Chou himself behaved more like an opposition politician. With the next legislative election coming in just a few months, he has tried to discredit the opposition whenever he had the chance.
Immediately after the Executive Yuan's supplementary budget was slashed by NT$18.4 billion -- most of which constituted subsidy funding for local governments -- he publicly called on residents of the affected localities to get even with the opposition parties, saying that construction projects would be hampered as a result.
This of course provoked the opposition lawmakers, but Chou appeared unconcerned.
"As the leader of the ruling party caucus, it was most important for Chou to win the trust of the opposition caucuses.
"But he didn't care to do so," said Levi Ying (營志宏), the convener of the New Party caucus.
"He was, however, very successful in garnering publicity for the DPP, even if the publicity was based on a distortion of facts," Ying added.
Chou's personality as an opposition activist still remains, despite the DPP's rise to power.
Chou started to take an active part in the opposition movement in 1982 when he worked as an assistant to Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), who was a Taipei City councilor at the time.
In 1985, Chou joined the Taipei City Council election under the auspice of being Chen's "apprentice" and was elected.
RSS