Party caucuses yesterday blamed each other for delays in passing a bill that would downsize the legislature, potentially leaving the bill in limbo in advance of Friday's legislative sitting.
Although each caucus seems to have agreed on halving the number of legislative seats from 225 to 113 and extending legislative terms from three years to four, they could not agree on how to change the present "multi-member district" system to a "single-member district" system.
While the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), the People First Party (PFP) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) say they fully support the latter reform, the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) and the alliance of independent lawmakers both vehemently oppose the new electoral design.
The KMT blamed both the DPP and the TSU yesterday, saying the parties had deliberately delayed reforms, with the DPP pretending to be the good guy and the TSU the bad guy.
"The bill is scheduled to be discussed at Friday's sitting, but after President Chen [Shui-bian (陳水扁)] said he hoped the constitutional amendments could be slowed down, the TSU came out and boycotted negotiations on the bill. The DPP and the TSU are working together to obstruct legislative reform," KMT caucus whip Liao Feng-te (廖風德) was quoted as saying by Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) after the two met on Monday.
DPP caucus whip Tsai Huang-liang (蔡煌瑯) said that there was some gap between what Wang had said on behalf of Liao and the actual words used by Chen. Tsai said Chen would not have wanted to slow down the amendments, instead hoping that a more comprehensive approach would be adopted.
Tsai also indicated that the DPP fully supported dealing with the bill on Friday.
"The DPP caucus hasn't changed its stance: we propose to deal with the [bill] on Friday. We have issued a level-A mobilization order [to legislators]," Tsai said.
Tsai said the caucus hoped that Wang would invite caucus heads to another round of negotiations before Friday to discuss details in preparation for the day.
However, DPP legislators Lin Cho-shui (
They said that the most urgently needed legislative reforms had nothing to do with downsizing, but rather involved changing the structure of electoral representation and the system under which committees were convened.
Extreme behavior
The three legislators added that only by adopting a system of single-member districts could the public weed out candidates who rely on extreme behavior to impress a small but sufficiently sized bloc of voters.
They also proposed that legislators remain on the same committee during a legislative term to cultivate expertise in the field, instead of being allowed to change committees every legislative session.
They added that committees should only have one convenor instead of three so that disputes can be avoided and committee business expedited.
The TSU, meanwhile, reiterated that it would only agree to the reduction of legislative seats and extension of legislative terms.
"If the legislature votes to adopt single-member districts, then it would eliminate the political space for minority groups and small parties. We object to big parties being allowed to monopolize politics," TSU caucus whip Chen Chien-ming (
"To eliminate small parties is to eliminate the TSU, and to eliminate the TSU is to eliminate the pursuit of localization," he said.
The alliance of independent lawmakers also issued a press release yesterday to say they opposed rushing the bill and that it should go through a four-month negotiation period instead of being forced into a showdown.
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