Constitutional amendments are not a panacea for the burning issues facing Taiwan, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said yesterday.
The priority should be to implement the current Constitution correctly and to deal with livelihood issues, he said.
"I do not oppose constitutional reform, but amendment is not the only way [of solving political problems]. The Constitution was amended two years ago, and it makes no sense to change it again before we have had a chance to put it into practice," he said.
Ma made the comments yesterday after attending a symposium entitled "The Growth of Constitutional Democracy and its Challenges" held by the National Policy Foundation at National Taiwan University.
In his speech entitled "A New Frontier for Constitutional Democracy in Taiwan," the chairman stressed the importance of implementing the Constitution and respecting the spirit of the dual executive system.
"The current Constitution adopts the dual executive system. If the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) wins a majority in the legislature and the KMT wins [the presidential election] in 2008, we will respect the system and nominate a premier who is acceptable to the legislature," he said.
The Constitution is modeled on the French dual-executive system and has undergone seven rounds of amendments since 1991. Under such a system, the president's ability to secure his position through the appointment of a premier depends on whether his party controls the legislature.
The DPP has claimed that Taiwan's system is not a "genuine" semi-presidential system, because it does not empower the president to make a unilateral decision to dismiss the legislature. The president can only do so after the legislature has passed vote of no-confidence against the premier.
Ma said that while it was possible to change to either a parliamentary or presidential system, it was not clear whether this was desirable or not. While governing under the current system might not be easy, the chairman said, seeking cross-party cooperation was part of the "art" of politics.
"No matter what system is in place, the spirit of democracy is to obey the majority while respecting the minority. If we can't keep follow this spirit, no system will run smoothly in Taiwan," Ma said.
Besides criticizing the president and the DPP for failing to put the Constitution into practice, Ma expressed his dissatisfaction with Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng's (
"Last year former KMT chairman Lien Chan (
Certain legislators from both the pan-green and pan-blue camps plan to jointly propose a constitutional amendment that would increase the number of legislative seats from 113 to 164, change the "single-member district, two-vote system" into a "multi-member district" system and adopt a parliamentary system of government.
Wang has voiced his support for the proposal, and said that where the KMT is concerned, the issue should be decided by the party's caucus.
Ma in return declared his strong opposition to the proposal, and dismissed Wang's suggestion.
"The proposal concerns the whole country, and therefore is an issue for the KMT as a whole, not just the caucus. I can't remain silent [on the issue]," he said.
Meanwhile, former premier Frank Hsieh (
"The number of legislative seats could be increased to 144 or 145. On the other hand, the president should not hold actual power and should receive a monthly salary of less than NT$100,000," he said.
"If the public is worried that no one would want to run for president under such a system, I can assure them that I would," Hsieh said.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Instead of focusing solely on the threat of a full-scale military invasion, the US and its allies must prepare for a potential Chinese “quarantine” of Taiwan enforced through customs inspections, Stanford University Hoover fellow Eyck Freymann said in a Foreign Affairs article published on Wednesday. China could use various “gray zone” tactics in “reconfiguring the regional and ultimately the global economic order without a war,” said Freymann, who is also a nonresident research fellow at the US Naval War College. China might seize control of Taiwan’s links to the outside world by requiring all flights and ships entering or leaving Taiwan
The next minimum wage hike is expected to exceed NT$30,000, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday during an award ceremony honoring “model workers,” including migrant workers, at the Presidential Office ahead of Workers’ Day today. Lai said he wished to thank the awardees on behalf of the nation and extend his most sincere respect for their hard work, on which Taiwan’s prosperity has been built. Lai specifically thanked 10 migrant workers selected for the award, saying that although they left their home countries to further their own goals, their efforts have benefited Taiwan as well. The nation’s industrial sector and small businesses lay
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