Former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) chairman Lin I-hsiung (
Lin, a staunch advocate of reducing the number of seats in the legislature from the current 225 to 113, said yesterday at the DPP headquarters that the hunger strike is scheduled to begin on Monday and continue through Jan. 17.
"KMT Chairman Lien Chan (
"Such a consensus among parties of all kinds represented a very rare moment in Taiwan's political history. Unless they [the pan-blue lawmakers] purposefully make things difficult, there is no reason why they can't finish the bill in the current legislative session. We shouldn't have to postpone it until the next session," he said.
Passing the stalled bill would involve amending the Constitution, which would require convening the constitutional amendment committee.
The committee can be convened only after the legislature decides on its composition, which cannot happen until the legislature passes a proposal to amend the Constitution.
According to a legislative decision yesterday, the bill amending the Constitution will not be addressed in this legislative session, but instead in the session that will begin on Feb. 6.
Lin, executive director of the Nuclear [Plant] 4 Referendum Initiative Association, yesterday urged the DPP to continue pushing for passage of the bill and to push for a legislative resolution that would make Taiwan a nuclear-free country.
Lin said that the plan to reduce the size of the legislature was only the second bill in Taiwan's political history that gained the unanimous support of political parties.
The first was the 1994 bill that led to the abolishment of the election for national assembly repre-sentatives.
"The pan-blue parties shouldn't have taken advantage of technical tactics to impede the bill and undermine the people's expectations. Since Lien Chan previously expressed sincere support for the bill, it will be very strange if the KMT, which has a majority in the legislature, fails to pass the constitutional amendment proposal by the end of the current session," Lin said.
The technical tactics that Lin referred to were the pan-blue lawmakers' opposition yesterday to allow the bill to be given a second reading in the legislature. Going forward with the second reading would have bypassed the convening of the constitutional amendment committee, which has stalled due to resistance from pan-blue lawmakers.
The pan-blue lawmakers yesterday rejected the DPP's proposal to allow the legislature's general assembly to handle the second review of the bill, insisting that the constitutional amendment committee must do the review in order to comply with regulations governing constitutional amendments.
The Nuclear [Plant] 4 Referendum Initiative Association issued a statement yesterday saying that members of the association will stage a five-day hunger strike from Jan. 12 to Jan. 17 in front of the KMT headquarters, demanding that the KMT support revising the Referendum Law, pass the bill that would reduce the number of seats in the legislature and pass a resolution that would make Taiwan a nuclear-free country.
DPP Secretary General Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄) said yesterday that the party will initiate a campaign in which President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) will join a nationwide campaign to deliver leaflets to promote plans to reduce the size of the legislature and to establish a nuclear-free Taiwan.
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