The legislative agenda was stalled yesterday by cross-party negotiation over the structure of the committee review of drafts for the much-anticipated oversight mechanism for cross-strait agreements.
The legislative floor meeting in Taipei was adjourned at noon without reaching the third reading of scores of bills on the agenda, including a motion to reconsider the decision to refer the oversight bills to the Legislative Yuan’s Internal Administrative Committee for review.
The reconsideration was deferred, a decision made in cross-party talks yesterday. If the reconsideration were put to a floor vote, it would be expected to pass, with the majority of legislative seats held by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), which could then have KMT Legislator Chang Ching-chung (張慶忠), one of the committee conveners, preside over the review of the oversight bills next week.
The opposition parties and the KMT have engaged in a tug-of-war for months over who is to preside over the Internal Administration Committee meeting that is set to review the oversight mechanism draft bills.
Chang, who has been nicknamed “Half-Minute Chung (半分忠)” for his 30-second attempt to ram through the cross-strait service trade agreement in his capacity as committee convener in March last year, which helped trigger the Sunflower movement, has been re-elected as one of the two internal administrative committee conveners for this session.
Opposed to Chang’s chairing the committee meeting, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus on Friday last week had proposed reconsidering referring the bills to the committee to have the DPP’s committee convener to preside over the meeting in the week that followed.
The motion was vetoed by the KMT, which again placed the reconsideration motion on the top of yesterday’s legislative discussion agenda.
Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) Legislator Chou Ni-an (周倪安) on Tuesday accused the KMT of “scheming to have Chang to preside the review of the oversight bills.”
“‘Half-Minute Chung’ might very well become ‘Half-Day Chung,’ who would rush through the review of the bills in half a day,” Chou said.
The TSU caucus was said to have planned to boycott the floor meeting by proposing at least 200 agenda changes yesterday if the KMT refused to hold cross-party negotiations.
KMT deputy caucus whip Liao Kuo-tung (廖國棟) said the KMT has made concessions, agreeing to have another KMT legislator to substitute for Chang as the chair for the review and to take turns with the DPP caucus in presiding over reviews. A consensus has been reached between the KMT and the DPP, he said, with the TSU as the only objector.
“Insofar as the KMT is the ruling party, it would not be possible for the party to give up the right to preside over the review,” Liao said.
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