Things have heated up in the past few months, with the four referendums on Saturday and next month’s by-election for the legislative seat in Taichung’s second electoral district drawing attention.
The nation’s political parties have attempted to use the two events to help their own causes.
However, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and some lawmakers have overstepped their roles and functions, either neglecting their duties or even violating the Constitution.
The KMT made a surprise announcement last week to suspend its review of the central government’s budget for the next fiscal year — giving the excuse that “the Executive Yuan has violated administrative neutrality when handling the four referendums.”
By doing so, the KMT has failed to take into consideration the Cabinet’s opposition to the referendums — with the questions on the ballot related to banning imports of pork containing traces of the leanness-enhancing additive ractopamine, relocation of a natural gas terminal project to protect algal reefs off Taoyuan’s Guanyin District (觀音), restarting construction at the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Gongliao District (貢寮) and holding referendums alongside elections — and its duty to defend the government’s policies, while ignoring its role as a reviewer of the government’s budget, insisting on neglecting its duties to delay the implementation of the budget and policies.
Such tricks are reminiscent of the KMT’s brutality during former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) time in office.
As the KMT caucus shows its brutality again by neglecting its duties, will the party’s move come back to haunt it in future elections? Or has it given up on regaining power through proper and legal means, while downgrading itself to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) puppet domestically, with its sole goal to disrupt Taiwan?
KMT Legislator Sandy Yeh (葉毓蘭), a co-convener of the legislature’s Judiciary and Organic Laws and Statutes Committee, this month invited officials, including Minister of Justice Tsai Ching-hsiang (蔡清祥) and Investigation Bureau Director-General Wang Jyun-li (王俊力), to present a special report to clarify controversy over alleged political prosecutions regarding the four referendums and the by-election.
After prompting a debate between the pan-blue and pan-green camps at the event, she announced that she would adjourn the meeting because she “had a stomachache.”
Yeh was accused of defending the KMT’s stance on the referendums and the Taichung by-election by inviting the officials to give the report.
Was she pressing prosecutors regarding controversy surrounding Yen Kuan-heng (顏寬恒), the KMT’s candidate in Taichung’s second district? Was she treating Taiwanese as if they were three-year-olds?
Many of the officials who were invited to the committee hearing were directly or indirectly related to investigations linked to Yen.
Was it legitimate for the legislative branch to intervene in prosecutorial action? Would such an intervention contravene the Constitution?
As a professor at Central Police University, Yeh must understand these issues.
It is clear how anxious some KMT members are as the winds turned against the party regarding the referendums and the by-election, but it has brought trouble on itself this time.
If the KMT does not seek repentance for its behavior, launching the four referendums groundlessly and inviting officials to report to the legislature unconstitutionally, it will only harm itself.
Roger Wu works in the service industry in New Taipei City.
Translated by Eddy Chang
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