The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus is today expected to put forward its own version of a draft bill on the regulation of political parties’ assets as a counterproposal to similar bills proposed by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus, which the KMT said clearly target certain parties.
The KMT caucus yesterday held a meeting at the Taipei-based National Policy Foundation, a KMT think tank, in response to the DPP caucus’ planned second attempt to send its draft bills aimed at dealing with ill-gotten party assets to legislative committees for review today.
The bills proposed by DPP lawmakers were blocked by their KMT counterparts at a legislative plenary session on Friday last week and were sent back to the Procedure Committee.
“The DPP’s bills are apparently tailor-made for certain parties,” KMT caucus secretary-general Lin Te-fu (林德福) said after the meeting. “Nevertheless, the KMT’s assets can undoubtedly withstand scrutiny and we have decided to also refer our drafted regulations on the supervision and administration of political parties’ assets tomorrow [today] for a legislative committee review.”
Lin said that when the DPP was last in power, several Control Yuan members, including Huang Huang-hsiung (黃煌雄), had investigated the KMT’s assets and that the party had also handled parts of its properties that were deemed “problematic.”
President-elect Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has repeatedly pledged to promote rapprochement among political parties, yet her party’s draft bills have indicated otherwise, Lin said.
“The public is welcome to take legal action against the KMT if it suspects impropriety in the party’s assets. We will accept the confiscation of any such assets and that is a consensus of the entire party,” Lin said.
KMT caucus whip Lai Shyh-bao (賴士葆) said the party planned to invite KMT Administration Committee director Lin Yu-hsien (林祐賢) to next week’s caucus meeting and to give KMT lawmakers detailed transaction information on each party asset.
“We also do not rule out releasing such information to the public at a later date,” Lai said.
In a statement issued later yesterday, KMT Acting Chairperson Huang Min-hui (黃敏惠) expressed hopes that the KMT caucus would endeavor to push for significant bills concerning people’s livelihood and serve as a mouthpiece for the people in the Legislative Yuan.
“The KMT should also play its role as a loyal opposition. As the largest opposition party, the party’s future stage will be the Legislative Yuan,” Huang said, adding that the KMT leadership and its think tank would offer unreserved support to party lawmakers in the hope of regaining public trust and returning to power.
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