Saying that Control Yuan member positions should not be allotted solely on the basis of party affiliation, incoming Control Yuan president Wang Chien-shien yesterday called on all political party heavyweights to keep their hands off President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) nominations for Control Yuan members.
After the legislature voted down Ma’s nominee for deputy head of the Control Yuan Shen Fu-hsiung (沈富雄) and Control Yuan member nominees Chen Yao-chang (陳耀昌), Hsu Ping-chin (許炳進) and Yu Mei-nu (尤美女), the Presidential Office had said Ma would name four new nominees in September.
Wang made the remarks in response to allegations that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), which together with the Non-Partisan Solidarity Union holds a three-quarter majority in the legislature, voted down the four because they were unhappy that some pan-blue politicians had not been included in Ma’s nomination list.
Wang expressed his regret at the rejections, saying that both the KMT and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) had voted for the nominees in the spirit of bipartisanship.
A founder of the pro-unification New Party, Wang said: “Was I so bad that I would not receive a single vote from the DPP?”
Wang said he was surprised that Yu, a human rights lawyer who specializes on women’s rights, was not supported by the KMT lawmakers, saying that: “Color [whether the nominee is pan-green or pan-blue] was the only concern of lawmakers.”
Chen, who expressed his support for DPP presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷), was also considered a pan-green nominee, as he was a DPP member.
Chen left the DPP in 2006 over a series of alleged corruption scandals involving former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) family and inner circle.
Rumors have circulated that the rejection of the four was because KMT Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄) was unhappy with Ma, who did not nominate the three People First Party (PFP) members PFP Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) wished to see on the list.
The three members were former PFP lawmakers Liu Wen-hsiung (劉文雄) and Feng Ting-kuo (馮定國) — who both yielded their candidacies to their KMT counterparts after the two parties negotiated joint candidates for the January legislative elections — and Soong’s long-term aide and party secretary-general, Ma Chieh-ming (馬傑明).
Dismissing the allegations, KMT legislative caucus whip Wu Yu-sheng (吳育昇) said that Hsu was rejected because he had concealed his tax evasion record in a caucus questionnaire, while Chen was turned down because of his lack of understanding of the Control Yuan’s authority.
Wu said Shen’s failure was partly attributed to some negative votes from the DPP, of which Shen was formerly a member. The KMT disqualified Yu as a Control Yuan member because of complaints received by the KMT caucus received concerning her integrity, Wu said.
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The coast guard today said that it had disrupted "illegal" operations by a Chinese research ship in waters close to the nation and driven it away, part of what Taipei sees a provocative pattern of China's stepped up maritime activities. The coast guard said that it on Thursday last week detected the Chinese ship Tongji (同濟號), which was commissioned only last year, 29 nautical miles (54km) southeast of the southern tip of Taiwan, although just outside restricted waters. The ship was observed lowering ropes into the water, suspected to be the deployment of scientific instruments for "illegal" survey operations, and the coast
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