If the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) wins more than half of the seats in the year-end legislative elections, it will be able to topple a statute on the formation of a commission to probe the March 19 election-eve shooting of President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), DPP legislative whip Tsai Huang-liang (蔡煌瑯) said yesterday.
Tsai made the remarks when he attended the inauguration of the campaign office of a DPP candidate for the December legislative elections in Kaohsiung.
His remarks followed a decision by the Executive Yuan the previous day to ask the Legislative Yuan to reconsider the statute, saying that it encroaches on the crime-investigating power of the Ministry of Justice and the authority of the Judicial Yuan, thus rending it unconstitutional.
Despite the Cabinet's reconsideration request, as the opposition "pan-blue alliance" of the Chinese Nationalist Party and the People First Party jointly control a slim majority in the 225-seat Legislative Yuan, the legislature is likely to uphold its decision.
Tsai noted that under the statute, a 17-member commission will be formed based on the ratio of legislative seats held by the various political parties. The president can be subjected to polygraph testing on the orders of the commission, which he claimed will not attempt to seek the truth, but will rather just smear the president.
For this reason, the DPP must win over half of the seats in the legislative elections so as to topple the "ridiculous" commission, Tsai continued.
He stressed that counties and cities in southern Taiwan, which traditionally favor the DPP, are important to the party so as to make up for its deficiency in northern Taiwan.
Kaohsiung County will elect nine legislators this time, and the DPP is hoping that all five DPP candidates will be elected.
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