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No eye on presidency, says Wang

Legislative Yuan President Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) said in Kaohsiung County that he has no plans at present to run for president in 2008.

Speaking to a group of college students at a training camp in Chengching Lake scenic area, Kaohsiung County, Wang said his priority now is to win re-election as president of the Legislative Yuan.

However, Wang said that he could change his plans for the future according to the political situation.

As the first vice chairman of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), Wang is a favorite to succeed Lien Chan (連戰) as party chairman after the year-end legislative elections and therefore likely to be the party's candidate in the 2008 presidential election, according to local political observers.

Meanwhile, the partyis gearing up to uphold the statute authorizing the formation of a special investigation committee to probe the March 19 shooting of President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), after the Executive Yuan asked the Legislative Yuan to reconsider the statute, a KMT lawmaker said yesterday.

The lawmaker, who preferred to remain unnamed, said the KMT will unite with its political ally, the People First Party (PFP), to call for an earlier start to the next legislative session currently slated to open Sept. 17, and to move to handle the Executive Yuan's request on Sept. 10.

The KMT has already begun seeking sponsorship for its proposal to start the next session earlier than scheduled, the KMT lawmaker said.

In order to uphold the statute which was rammed through the legislature by the KMT and PFP over the opposition of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party on Aug. 24, the two parties have to rally 109 votes, which is only one vote shy of the total votes the two parties can marshal as two of their 112 lawmakers are currently out of the country and therefore set to be absent from the gathering on Friday.

As some lawmakers of the two parties who failed to win their respective party's endorsement for the upcoming legislative elections might not tow the party line in the vote out of anger, the KMT and the PFP have to turn to the 13 independent lawmakers for help to ensure the statute survives the reconsideration request.

Leaving nothing to chance, the lawmaker said, Lien is set to go to the Legislative Yuan Sept. 10 to see to it that all the KMT lawmakers follow the party line.

The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which said it considers the statute unconstitutional, is going out of its way to try to stop the independent lawmakers from lending their support.

In order to prove what they have claimed, the two parties jointly came up with the controversial statute for the formation of an investigation committee and pushed it through the Legislative Yuan to the cries of the DPP administration which says the statute gives the Legislative Yuan powers that the Constitution clearly states belong to the Control Yuan, Judicial Yuan and the Ministry of Justice.

The Executive Yuan decided on Aug. 27 to ask the legislature to reconsider the statute, in effect vetoing it unless the legislature reaffirms it with a majority vote. The request was formally relayed to the Legislative Yuan on Friday.
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