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New constitution drafting under way: 908 group

A pro-Taiwanese independence group, the 908 Taiwan Republic Campaign, yesterday unveiled a draft guideline on rewriting the constitution of the Republic of Taiwan, saying that the new constitution will increase the significance of people's participation.

"The Constitution of the Republic of China is a meaningless constitution that only cares about the 1.3 billion people who live in China and has nothing to do with the welfare of the 23 million people of Taiwan," said Chuang Po-lin (莊柏林), the supervisor of the campaign group and a Presidential Office national policy adviser.

"Taiwan needs a constitution that is designed specifically for Taiwan's needs, and the 908 Taiwan Republic Campaign has been working on it for a long time while observing Taiwan's chaotic political system," Chuang said.

A three-branch governmental and the presidential system are included in the group's draft in a bid to stop the endless confrontations between the Executive Yuan and the Legislative Yuan, he added.

"The new constitution is going to put a lot of emphasis on the significance of participation by the people, as well as penalizing vote-buying and corrupt politicians, which the group consider to be two of the most urgent problems causing the present political decay in the country," he added at a news conference held yesterday.

Chen Teh-cheng (陳德正), writer of the draft guideline, said it features four specific goals -- eradicating the vote-buying culture in Taiwan, allowing all the people of Taiwan to participate in the process of making the constitution, supervising the efficiency of the Legislative Yuan and the statistical evaluation of all legislators' performance.

A constitutional draft will be announced on Feb. 28, 2007, and the alliance will launch an activity that calls on 3 million people to endorse the content of the new constitution on Feb. 28, 2008. Pro-independence groups will ask the winner of the 2008 presidential election to promulgate the new constitution.
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