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Wang postpones CEC bill review

Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) yesterday ruled in favor of the pan-green camp and suspended the bill on the organization of the Central Election Commission (CEC) pending cross-party negotiations on the matter.

"Before we really discuss this, let everyone just sit back, relax and calm down. Nothing can be done if we continue to fight with each other," Wang said.

Wang made the decision around noon yesterday before the session broke for lunch.

At around 8am yesterday morning, Democratic Progressive Party lawmakers began to gather on the legislative floor to obstruct the legislative session as the CEC bill had been put at the top of the day's agenda.

The meeting began at 9am and broke for recess, after which legislators were due to discuss the CEC bill. DPP lawmakers then blocked the entrances to the legislative floor with chairs to prevent the legislative speaker from reentering. DPP caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) later had the chairs removed.

After the session resumed, legislators surrounded Wang, took over his microphone and invited him to step outside to discuss the matter.

Later on, Wang said of the move: "Do not use the word `kidnapping.' I was not kidnapped by anyone. Everyone here was just trying to get things done."

During the interruption, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers waved large posters with the words "Resume the meeting."

"Does the KMT want this [the CEC amendment] approved? Over my dead body," DPP legislator Wang Shih-cheng (王世堅) said.

Commenting on the DPP caucus' behavior, KMT Legislator Hsu Shao-ping (徐少萍) said democracy was about the voice of the majority not the size of people's fists.

The DPP should respect legislative procedure regardless of whether they are upset about what's on the agenda, she said.

"They are more than welcome to boycott the proposal. But the bottom line is that a boycott must be carried out through discussion, not by interrupting the legislative session," she said.

The KMT, upset at the CEC's decision to implement one-step voting in the Jan. 12 legislative elections, drafted the CEC bill and used its majority at the Procedure Committee meeting earlier this week to place the bill at the top of yesterday's session.

DPP Legislator Tsai Chi-fang (蔡啟芳) walked away as the meeting's convener and host of the committee in protest of the move, leading to a DPP boycott.
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