DPP appeals for a more rational legislature

A Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus whip yesterday urged the opposition parties to be rational and pass major bills in the next legislative session, which is set to open on Feb. 21.

Chen Chin-jun (陳景峻) said the Executive Yuan should continue its administrative work, and expressed hope that the legislature will pass several priority bills that the Executive Yuan submitted but failed to get passed in the previous session.

Chen in particular the arms procurement project, the confirmation of Control Yuan nominees and a package of amendments to the Organic Law of the Executive Yuan (行政院組織法).

He stressed that the opposition-controlled legislature has blocked the arms procurement plan 45 times and the confirmation of Control Yuan nominees 27 times.

On Friday, People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) said that the PFP is determined to continue to scrutinize the arms procurement bill and President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) Control Yuan nominees in the next legislative session. Soong said that April -- after Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) has paid a visit to the US -- would be an appropriate time to further discuss the arms bill.

Soong that Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) should give a report to the Legislative Yuan to clarify the government's stance toward issues regarding weapons purchases and cross-strait relations.

The PFP favors maintaining an adequate national defense capability but is firmly opposed to turning Taiwan into a military base or a partner in any military alliance, he said, adding that maintaining neutrality is the best way for Taiwan to keep its advantages.

The PFP will get to the bottom of these issues and is open to discussions and exchanges of opinion with the KMT and the DPP on related matters, Soong said.

Meanwhile, PFP Legislator Chang Hsien-yao (張顯耀), who is also head of the PFP's policy research center, said that in the new legislative session, the PFP will prioritize a bill jointly put forth by the two parties to amend the Statue Governing the Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (台灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) to realize direct transport links with China.

Chang he hopes the pan-green camp of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) will consult "rationally" with the pan-blue camp on the bill and threatened that if they don't, the PFP and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) will initiate a vote to steamroll the bill through the legislature when the four-month consultation period expires in May.

On the controversial cross-strait peace promotion bill, which stipulates that a peace-promotion committee will be set up under the Legislative Yuan, Chang said that as a goodwill gesture to the DPP, the PFP will not object if the DPP wants to make the committee subordinate to the Presidential Office.