Newly elected legislators from the New Power Party (NPP) yesterday outlined the principles they would follow when deciding who to support for the position of legislative speaker.
“There are four key factors which will influence us: the candidates’ ideas on legislative reform, their previous political performance, their public reputation and their ability to engage in legislative diplomacy,” NPP Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) said.
He said they are giving particular importance to the legislative reforms proposed by the candidates.
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
“Our expectation is that anyone who wants to run for speaker should lay out their promises and plans for legislative reform, otherwise, what are we voting for?” he said.
NPP legislator-elect Hung Tzu-yung (洪慈庸) said that the party hoped that more “young faces” within the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) would run for the speakership, while stopping short of endorsing any specific candidate such as DPP Legislator Tsai Chi-chang (蔡其昌).
NPP legislators-elect also said that they would not put forward their own candidate for the speakership, adding that they had no objections to the DPP occupying both the legislative speaker and deputy speaker positions as long as the candidates met the requirements.
“Even though we received a lot of support in the elections, we have to admit that we are still a new force,” NPP legislator-elect Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明) said.
NPP legislators-elect also outlined their initial legislative agenda, as well as their position regarding the “cross-caucus talks.”
Huang said they would focus on passing a “power transition act,” a “legislative reform act,” a “cross-strait agreement oversight act” and an “anti-media monopolization act,” as well as passing revisions to the Referendum Act (公民投票法) and Civil Servants Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法) to lower the thresholds required to initiate recall campaigns and referendum.
He said that the party planned to participate in “cross-caucus talks” despite their lack of transparency and undercutting of the Legislative Yuan’s committee system.
However, participating does not mean that “we will approve anything,” he said, while promising not to publicize audio or video recordings of the talks without the consent of other caucuses.
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