The Legislative Yuan yesterday continued a marathon vote on Forward-looking Infrastructure Development Program budget proposals, after the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) failed to occupy the rostrum in an attempt to disrupt proceedings.
KMT lawmakers stormed the rostrum at 9am to prevent Deputy Legislative Speaker Tsai Chi-chang (蔡其昌) from chairing the session.
However, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers regained the rostrum after a scuffle with their KMT counterparts, as Tsai announced the start of the session.
The session resumed voting on infrastructure budget proposals that were suspended on Friday when negotiations between the KMT and the DPP broke down.
The KMT has proposed 10,421 motions to obstruct the review process, while the DPP plans to proceed on a first come, first serve basis and merge similar proposals into a single vote to circumvent KMT opposition.
Cross-caucus negotiations on Thursday nearly saw the KMT agreeing to slash the number of motions to 1,200.
The KMT requested three revotes on every proposal, meaning a motion would go through four rounds of voting. About 200 proposals were voted on as of press time yesterday.
The KMT said its attempt to seize the podium was provoked by a DPP proposal to condense the number of DPP-submitted budget proposals — totaling 100 — to 28 to speed up the review.
KMT caucus secretary-general Lin Wei-chou (林為洲) criticized the DPP’s attempt to rush through the budget review by bundling DPP and KMT proposals to skip a lengthy voting process.
“The DPP is speeding up the review to make it like a [fast-food] ‘drive-through,’” Lin said.
The KMT proposed a massive amount of motions to prevent the passage of controversial budget proposals and ensure legislative scrutiny, Lin said.
The KMT aimed to slash the budget of 24 rail projects, which were submitted without feasibility assessments, he said.
The Cabinet asked for a preliminary budget of NT$800 million (US$26.52 million) for the 24 rail projects, but the full budget for those projects could balloon to NT$660 billion, Lin said.
Meanwhile, the DPP said its motion to condense its number of its proposals was a precaution against further KMT obstruction.
If the DPP is successful in reviewing its original 100 proposals, the Legislative Yuan would review 458 proposals and motions without needing to vote on all the KMT proposals, and the whole review process should be completed on Thursday, DPP caucus secretary-general Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) said.
The anticipated review of an amendment to the National Sports Act (國民體育法) seeking to reform the nation’s sports associations should be delayed until Thursday, while the KMT should be held responsible for any further delay, Lee said.
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