Premier Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄) announced yesterday that he would continue to serve as premier "for political stability" and that most of his Cabinet members would also stay on, after President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) rejected his resignation.
Chang resigned from the position on Thursday following a tradition set by previous premiers following the election of a new legislature.
However, with only three months left of his presidential term, Chen decided to reject Chang's resignation in order to avoid any more political upheaval, the Central News Agency reported.
Chang accepted Chen's decision and said that most of his team would stay as well.
"My Cabinet team knows my leadership style well," Chang said when approached for comment outside his residence. "I think they will stay on with me."
As for the vacancies left by former Cabinet members who were elected to the legislature, "those vacancies will be filled with lawmakers who failed in their re-election bids," Chang said.
Meanwhile, Chang confirmed that Government Information Office Minister Shieh Jhy-wey (謝志偉) and Minister of Education Tu Cheng-sheng (杜正勝) would stay on.
Shieh and Tu resigned before the Cabinet did so en masse, after Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) and several other Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) members said that the two, along with Ministry of Education chief secretary Chuang Kuo-jung (莊國榮), were partly responsible for the party's defeat in the legislative elections because of their "controversial" behavior.
In related news, Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (
"Rejecting the [Cabinet's] resignation is more acceptable. It would be wrong for the president to accept [Chang's] resignation and then appoint a new premier only months before the presidential election," Wang said yesterday outside the Central Election Commission, where he was accompanying Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) as he registered his candidacy.
Constitutional convention stipulates that the Cabinet resign when a new legislature is elected and gives the president the power to choose a new premier without requiring the consent of the new legislature.
Establishing a new constitutional convention, as Chen has suggested, would eliminate the problem of a Cabinet forming twice in the space of three months, once when the new legislature is sworn in on Feb. 1 and again when the new president is inaugurated on May 20.
Rejecting the resignation and making the Cabinet a "caretaker Cabinet" presenting policies and bills through cross-party negotiations was more reasonable, Wang said.
Wang said the Constitution did not require the premier to resign after a new legislature was elected.
Meanwhile, two academics yesterday criticized the DPP caucus' move to seek a constitutional interpretation on the new "single district, two-vote" electoral voting system.
At a forum in Taipei, National Taiwan University political science professor Chang Lin-cheng (張麟徵) said it was "strange" for the caucus to pursue the interpretation, adding that such a move would give the public a negative impression as the new system had been "co-authored" by the DPP and the KMT.
"The DPP should have been able to foresee the [legislative elections] result [under the new system]," she said, adding that the new system should not be reviewed until it had been used at least twice.
"Is it reasonable for those who lose the game to seek to change the rules of the competition?" she asked.
Chang made the comments after the DPP caucus on Friday began a signature drive to seek a constitutional interpretation on the grounds that the new system was unfair because of the large variations in the sizes of the populations in the different constituencies.
The caucus is expected to hold a meeting today to promote the signature drive.
George Tsai (
EXCUSES: Beijing is using government and research vessels as a pretext to harass the nation and enter its EEZ, and engage in ‘hegemonic expansion,’ the coast guard said The Coast Guard Administration yesterday said it drove away Chinese oceanographic research vessel Xiang Yang Hong 22 (向陽紅33) from restricted waters after warning it that it was in Taiwan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ). The Chinese vessel entered restricted waters off the coast of Yilan County’s Suao (蘇澳) at 11:35pm on Thursday, the coast guard said, adding that it dispatched the Lanyu patrol vessel and the boat PP-10077 to shadow the Chinese ship and issue radio warnings ordering it to leave. China has no sovereignty over waters off Taiwan’s east coast, Lanyu’s crew told Xiang Yang Hong 22 over the radio, and demanded
BAIT AND SWITCH: Allowing KMT-run counties to sell to China while the threat of abrupt cancelations hangs overhead is another form of coercion, officials said Beijing is using agricultural purchase offers announced during the Straits Forum to deepen Taiwan’s dependence on the Chinese market, a Taiwanese official said yesterday as they criticized the Taitung County commissioner’s participation in the initiative. During the Straits Forum held in Xiamen on Saturday, Chinese officials announced a sales and purchase agreement for agricultural products from some counties led by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). Taitung County Commissioner Yao Ching-ling (饒慶鈴), who was barred from attending the event in person by the Mainland Affairs Council, participated via video. Under the agreement, China would purchase atemoyas, pomeloes, tea and grouper harvested in Taitung,
Tropical Storm Mekkhala is forecast to strengthen into a typhoon tomorrow and could come close enough to Taiwan later in the week to prompt a sea warning, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 2 pm, the storm was located 1,870 kilometers southeast of Taiwan's southern tip and moving west- northwest at 23 km per hour. CWA forecaster Cheng Chieh-jen (鄭傑仁) said Mekkhala is expected to continue moving west-northwest through Tuesday under the influence of the Pacific high- pressure system before gradually turning north toward waters east of Taiwan or south of the Ryukyu Islands. The timing and angle of the
Four Taiwanese universities have been ranked among the world's top 200 institutions in the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings for next year, the highest Taiwan has ever placed in the category, with National Taiwan University (NTU) achieving its best performance at 54th globally and 17th in Asia. The four Taiwanese institutions in the global top 200 are NTU (54th), National Tsing Hua University (142nd), National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University (177th) and National Cheng Kung University (191st), the rankings showed. All four universities achieved their highest-ever global rankings this year, QS data showed. National Cheng Kung University entered the top 200 for
RSS