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 (
FINAL COUNTDOWN: About 50,000 attended a pro-recall rally yesterday, while the KMT and the TPP plan to rally against the recall votes today Democracy activists, together with arts and education representatives, yesterday organized a motorcade, while thousands gathered on Ketagalan Boulevard in Taipei in the evening in support of tomorrow’s recall votes. Recall votes for 24 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers and suspended Hsinchu City mayor Ann Kao (高虹安) are to be held tomorrow, while recall votes for seven other KMT lawmakers are scheduled for Aug. 23. The afternoon motorcade was led by the Spring Breeze Culture and Arts Foundation, the Tyzen Hsiao Foundation and the Friends of Lee Teng-hui Association, and was joined by delegates from the Taiwan Statebuilding Party and the Taiwan Solidarity
‘NON-RED’: Taiwan and Ireland should work together to foster a values-driven, democratic economic system, leveraging their complementary industries, Lai said President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday expressed hopes for closer ties between Taiwan and Ireland, and that both countries could collaborate to create a values-driven, democracy-centered economic system. He made the remarks while meeting with an Irish cross-party parliamentary delegation visiting Taiwan. The delegation, led by John McGuinness, deputy speaker of the Irish house of representatives, known as the Dail, includes Irish lawmakers Malcolm Byrne, Barry Ward, Ken O’Flynn and Teresa Costello. McGuinness, who chairs the Ireland-Taiwan Parliamentary Friendship Association, is a friend of Taiwan, and under his leadership, the association’s influence has grown over the past few years, Lai said. Ireland is
Instead of threatening tariffs on Taiwan-made chips, the US should try to reinforce cooperation with Taiwan on semiconductor development to take on challenges from the People’s Republic of China (PRC), a Taiwanese think tank said. The administration of US President Donald Trump has threatened to impose across-the-board import duties of 32 percent on Taiwan-made goods and levy a separate tariff on semiconductors, which Taiwan is hoping to avoid. The Research Institute for Democracy, Society, and Emerging Technology (DSET), a National Science and Technology Council think tank, said that US efforts should focus on containing China’s semiconductor rise rather than impairing Taiwan. “Without
An SOS message in a bottle has been found in Ireland that is believed to have come from the Taiwanese captain of fishing vessel Yong Yu Sing No. 18 (永裕興18號), who has been missing without a trace for over four years, along with nine Indonesian crew members. The vessel, registered to Suao (蘇澳), went missing near Hawaii on Dec. 30, 2020. The ship has since been recovered, but the 10 crew members have never been found. The captain, surnamed Lee (李), is believed to have signed the note with his name. A post appeared on Reddit on Tuesday after a man