The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus will move at Friday's legislative sitting for a floor vote on the proposed statute for increasing investment in public construction (擴大公共建設投資條例), the legal base for the government's planned ten key infrastructure projects.
The statute has been stuck in the Procedure Committee due to a pan-blue camp boycott.
DPP caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (
The committee chairman, DPP caucus secretary-general Lee Chun-yee (
Ker said the caucus would demand the Procedure Committee hold an extra session tomorrow and have the statute listed for discussion on Friday.
Whether the pan-blue camp cooperates or again boycotts the statute in the session, the DPP is determined to have the floor vote on the statute on Friday, Ker said.
If the pan-blue camp moved to prevent listing the statute for discussion on Friday in the committee session, the DPP would still be able to demand an alteration to items for discussion and have the floor vote on the statute.
This was because the four-month period for inter-party negotiations had expired.
Lee halted the session after most proposals from the pan-green caucuses and the Cabinet were boycotted by the pan-blue camp.
After Lee aborted the session, the pan-blue camp condemned Lee and the DPP.
"It can be seen clearly from today's session that it is the DPP that is delaying the legislative process," People First Party caucus deputy convener Sheu Yuan-kuo (許淵國) said.
"Unless the DPP and Lee apologize, the pan-blue camp will close the door to any future inter-party negotiations," KMT caucus whip Liao Feng-te (廖風德) said.
Lee, on the other hand, defended his actions, saying he halted the meeting because there was no possibility of conducting a reasonable dialogue in the meeting.
"The pan-blue camp has viciously boycotted these proposals since the election and they are violating the legal and constitutional rights of the Cabinet and legislators to make proposals," Lee said.
"We now want to deal with procedural matters in the legislative sitting on Friday and ask the speaker and the floor to decide on these matters," Lee said.
"We are not getting any progress in the committee," Lee added.
In other news, the Alliance of Independent Lawmakers yesterday announced that they would officially establish the "Non-Party Free Alliance" (無黨自由聯盟; no official English name has been confirmed) on Sept. 30.
The group will nominate its own candidates for the legislative election.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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