A proposal to recall President Chen Shui-bian (
The motion was signed by 72 legislators, more than the required one-quarter of the 221-seat legislature. However, since the legislative session ended yesterday, it won't be reviewed anytime soon.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Ting Shou-chung (丁守中) insisted on presenting a recall motion yesterday in the legislature despite KMT Chairman Ma Ying-jeou's (馬英九) opposition.
Faced with the growing number of pleas from KMT legislators and the pan-blue alliance, Ma said yesterday that the party had never ruled out trying to recall the president, vice president or demanding the Cabinet's resignation.
"We don't exclude the possibility of recalling the president if the scandals get more serious. By then we will hopefully have more of a consensus [on the idea] from the public and even Democratic Progressive Party [DPP] members, so the recall proposal would be more likely to pass," Ma said.
The People First Party (PFP) had launched a campaign to recall Chen on Saturday.
A motion to recall the president needs the signatures of at least one-quarter of the Legislative Yuan's members -- 55 -- as well as the consent of two-thirds of all legislative members, pending final approval by half of the nation's eligible voters.
As the threshold for the passage of a recall motion is high, Ma said the KMT should wait for the right time to make the proposal to ensure its success.
"The recall will not be successful with just the pan-blue camp's efforts ? What the KMT can do now is continue the search for other corruption cases and oversee prosecutors to make sure they take the cases seriously," Ma said.
"We are doing our job as the opposition party. The KMT is not sleeping," he said.
Pan-blue legislators also urged the president to step down over his ties to fugitive tycoon Chen You-hao (陳由豪).
The call came after former DPP legislator Shen Fu-hsiung (
Just days before the 2004 presidential election, Chen Yu-hao accused the president of accepting six political donations from him. He also claimed that he had met first lady Wu Shu-jen (
Wu denied meeting Chen Yu-hao at her home or taking money from him. She said at the time that her husband would resign and quit politics if the accusation was true.
"What Shen said on Monday proved that Wu told a big lie on the eve of the presidential election," PFP Legislator Chang Hsien-yao (
"If Shen is telling the truth, the president must resign because of the first lady's promise," he said.
He said the PFP had demanded that prosecutors summon both Shen and Wu as soon as possible to resolve the matter.
KMT legislators backed Chang's call. Deputy KMT caucus whip Joanna Lei (雷倩) urged the president to admit his errors and take political responsibility for them.
PRESIDENT TO RESPOND
Meanwhile, the president is expected to make a public statement soon on the insider trading scandal his son-in-law has been linked to, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairman Yu Shyi-kun said yesterday.
"I have such an expectation," Yu said, adding that "in many cases, a clear explanation will help eliminate hearsay and public doubts."
Yu said he didn't think the people wanted to see the president forced to step down and the country plunged into political unrest.
He said he believed the people wanted to see justice served and those involved in irregularities to be dealt with according to the law.
Additional reporting by CNA
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