Serious confrontation between the pan-green and pan-blue camps was a principal feature that marred the sixth legislature, which ended its sixth and final session on Friday.
The sixth legislature, which concluded a week early to allow incumbent legislators more time to engage in campaign activities for the Jan. 12 legislative elections, set various records over the last three years, including three failed attempts to recall President Chen Shui-bian (
It opened in early 2005 in an atmosphere of extreme mutual distrust, with the pan-blue alliance of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the People First Party (PFP) convinced of the illegality of the 2004 presidential election result.
slim victory
Shortly after Chen won re-election by a slim margin, the pan-blue presidential ticket of then KMT chairman Lien Chan (
Bickering and confrontation stalled business in the legislature from that point on.
One of the most conspicuous was the boycott by the pan-blue alliance of the list of Control Yuan members nominated by the president for legislative confirmation, leaving the nation's highest watchdog empty after its members' term expired on Jan. 31, 2005.
The opposition attempted to recall the president three times in the latter half of last year, but failed each time as the move required the consent of two-thirds of the 225-member legislature, in which the pan-blue camp only commanded a slim majority.
Conflict between the two camps also resulted in a budget stalemate. While the law stipulates that the budget for the central government should be passed one month before the start of a new fiscal year, the 2007 budget did not pass until June 15.
The budget was repeatedly stalled because of conflict over the legislative agenda, with the KMT pushing for the review first of the controversial draft Organic Law of the Central Election Commission (
condemnation
After the fourth session of the legislature ended in pandemonium, Legislative Yuan Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (
The non-stop conflict took its toll on the operation of the legislature, which had to organize provisional sessions just to get some work done. The just-concluded legislature convened three provisional sessions, on par with the record in the fifth legislature.
But compared with the fifth legislature, which passed 611 bills, the just-concluded legislature passed only 498 bills, a new low for the past three legislatures. The confrontation between the ruling and the opposition lawmakers is entirely to blame for this dismal performance, analysts said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching