Post-election politicking has become even stranger as the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the People First Party (PFP) flirt with one another and the PFP and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) struggle over a number of issues, including who will receive blue-camp support in the race for legislative speaker.
The DPP-PFP dalliance was confirmed yesterday but ended in failure, for now. The draft Disposition of Assets Improperly Obtained by Political Parties bill, which the DPP caucus earlier claimed had received PFP caucus support, again failed to pass the Procedure Committee.
According to sources in the DPP and PFP caucuses, the parties had reached agreement to have the draft law approved by the Procedure Committee for consideration by legislative committees.
Were it not for a verbal slip by DPP caucus whip Lee Chun-yee (
"The PFP caucus is seeking to work with the DPP caucus on the bill," Lee had said. "The PFP originally supported the law, but since it had agreed to cooperate with the KMT, it could not support the legislation. But now the KMT-PFP alliance has come to an end, and the PFP wants to walk its own way, so it may want to start afresh from here."
But Lee had spoken too soon.
After the slip was broadcast on TV, the KMT caucus began applying pressure on the PFP caucus prior to the committee hearing. The PFP caucus then decided to change its mind and block the bill's passage in the committee.
But the story may not end there. The PFP yesterday said that as soon as the word "improperly" was removed from the title of the draft, it would be willing to support the bill.
"Party assets are not only a burden for the KMT, but also one which the PFP cannot put aside," PFP caucus whip Liu Wen-hsiung (劉文雄) said.
"The PFP caucus will support the passage of the draft law from the Procedure Committee if the DPP is willing to take `improperly' out of the title, since we should not adopt preconceived positions over it," Liu said.
In better news for the government, the legislature yesterday agreed for the special NT$500 billion budget for public infrastructure projects over the next five years to be delivered to legislative committees for review, after the legislature heard a report from Premier Yu Shyi-kun.
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:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching