The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus’ failure to pass a draft bill on Friday that would allow the import of US beef containing ractopamine residue was a blow to President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) leadership, as his repeated calls for the bill to clear the legislative floor were in vain.
Lifting the ban on US beef containing traces of the livestock feed additive has been a priority of Ma since his re-election in January.
In his capacity as KMT chairman, Ma demanded the full support of the KMT caucus on the bill and threatened to discipline those who did not vote along the party line.
While some KMT lawmakers took a hard line and tried to force a vote on the amendment to the Act Governing Food Sanitation (食品衛生管理法) during the opposition’s boycott of the vote last week, a substantial number of KMT lawmakers were clearly reluctant to force a vote.
“KMT lawmakers are unwilling to follow Ma’s orders because of pressure from voters, and Ma’s failure to control his party caucus will make him a lame duck president if he does not improve communication with party legislators,” National Sun Yat-sen University political science professor Liao Da-chi (廖達琪) said.
Although Ma repeatedly vowed to initiate bold reforms when he began a second term on May 20 and stressed the necessity of the bill on US beef imports being passed to improve the nation’s trade relations with the US and other nations, KMT lawmakers are reluctant to cooperate due to the government’s poor communication with the legislative branch, she said.
“Ma is facing a great challenge over his leadership early in his second term, and he must learn to communicate with legislators more effectively. Otherwise he won’t be able to get his orders out of the Presidential Office,” Liao said.
The bill on US beef imports is one of a number of controversial policies that have sparked growing public discontent and dissent from within the party. The unpopular policies, from hikes in fuel and electricity prices to the securities and futures tax, have caused Ma’s approval ratings to plummet and many KMT politicians to distance themselves from him.
Ma’s critics describe him as a stubborn and arrogant politician who lacks communication and negotiation skills, both as president and KMT chairman, and the traits have taken a toll on his leadership within the party at the beginning of his second term, as KMT lawmakers brush off the government’s attempts to seek unanimous support from the party caucus for reform proposals.
To call for party unity, Ma attended the KMT’s caucus meeting on June 7 and asked party legislators to ensure that the bill on US beef pass the legislature by the end of this legislative session.
However, the caucus meeting, held to strengthen communication between the executive branch and legislative caucus, lasted only an hour. Ma left the room immediately after making a speech, without listening to lawmakers’ responses.
The brief meeting on June 7 served as an example of Ma’s lack of effort at communicating with party members, a KMT Central Standing Committee member who wished to remain anonymous said.
The KMT caucus has suggested that Ma and the Cabinet should explain the government’s stance on the US beef issue to party members, but Ma insisted the government did not have any pre-established stance on the issue, leaving party lawmakers confused about the Ma administration’s position.
“President Ma needs to better explain the government’s stance to party members and understand party lawmakers’ pressure from voters. He cannot expect full support from party members by simply asking us to consider the party’s overall interests,” the anonymous KMT Central Standing Committee member said.
National Dong Hwa University political analyst Shih Cheng-feng (施正鋒) said Ma should initiate talks with KMT lawmakers, seek their support and widen his small decision-making team to strengthen party unity.
If Ma does not find a way to improve relations with party legislators, his leadership will be further weakened and the administration’s credibility will be seriously damaged, Shih said.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
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:
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
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not