Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday said he was in favor of the KMT yielding at least four legislative committee convener seats to the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
"It is necessary to give some committee conveners to the DPP. They would not have a channel to express their opinions in the legislature if we refused to do so and that would not be democratic," Ma said when approached for comments after attending a municipal event in Taipei.
KMT Secretary-General Wu Den-yih (
PHOTO: CNA
Under the new "single-member district, two votes" system, which cut the number of legislative seats in half, the number of legislative committees has been reduced from 12 to eight, each with 13 to 15 members.
Committee members will be chosen based on the proportion of the seats each party received and the conveners in each committee will be elected by the committee members.
As the majority party in the legislature, Wu said the KMT should initiate efforts to build better relations between the pan-blue and pan-green camps, adding that the KMT would be willing to yield more seats if the DPP put forward better candidates.
KMT Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (
He said the legislature also took more than 20 days off before the presidential elections in both 1996 and 2000 to allow legislators to campaign for the presidential candidates. Whether or not a break was necessary would be decided via cross-party negotiations, he said.
The new legislature will convene on Feb. 1 to elect the new legislative speaker and deputy speaker. It is scheduled to have a general question-and-answer session from Feb 26. to Feb. 29, which will be followed by a break until after the March 22 election.
When asked for comments yesterday, DPP caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) said what the KMT was doing was no "favor" but was simply in line with "the traditional practices of the legislature."
"That is the principal we practise here -- to show respect to the smaller parties in the legislature," Ker said.
He said that the DPP caucus in the past session had yielded conveners' seats to the Taiwan Solidarity Union caucus while the KMT caucus had given conveners' seats to the People First Party caucus and also to independent legislators.
Additional reporting by Jimmy Chuang
Taiwan would benefit from more integrated military strategies and deployments if the US and its allies treat the East China Sea, the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea as a “single theater of operations,” a Taiwanese military expert said yesterday. Shen Ming-shih (沈明室), a researcher at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said he made the assessment after two Japanese military experts warned of emerging threats from China based on a drill conducted this month by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) Eastern Theater Command. Japan Institute for National Fundamentals researcher Maki Nakagawa said the drill differed from the
‘WORSE THAN COMMUNISTS’: President William Lai has cracked down on his political enemies and has attempted to exterminate all opposition forces, the chairman said The legislature would motion for a presidential recall after May 20, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said yesterday at a protest themed “against green communists and dictatorship” in Taipei. Taiwan is supposed to be a peaceful homeland where people are united, but President William Lai (賴清德) has been polarizing and tearing apart society since his inauguration, Chu said. Lai must show his commitment to his job, otherwise a referendum could be initiated to recall him, he said. Democracy means the rule of the people, not the rule of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), but Lai has failed to fulfill his
A rally held by opposition parties yesterday demonstrates that Taiwan is a democratic country, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday, adding that if opposition parties really want to fight dictatorship, they should fight it on Tiananmen Square in Beijing. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) held a protest with the theme “against green communists and dictatorship,” and was joined by the Taiwan People’s Party. Lai said the opposition parties are against what they called the “green communists,” but do not fight against the “Chinese communists,” adding that if they really want to fight dictatorship, they should go to the right place and face
A 79-year-old woman died today after being struck by a train at a level crossing in Taoyuan, police said. The woman, identified by her surname Wang (王), crossed the tracks even though the barriers were down in Jhongli District’s (中壢) Neili (內壢) area, the Taoyuan Branch of the Railway Police Bureau said. Surveillance footage showed that the railway barriers were lowered when Wang entered the crossing, but why she ventured onto the track remains under investigation, the police said. Police said they received a report of an incident at 6:41am involving local train No. 2133 that was heading from Keelung to Chiayi City. Investigators
RSS