The legislature's non-partisan alliance yesterday announced its decision to give up the three legislative committee convener seats allotted to its members, after allegations were made that the allotment involved some under-the-counter deals.
The seats included one each in the Economics and Energy Committee, Sci-tech and Information Committee and Education and Culture Committee, which were taken by Yen Ching-piao (
PHOTO: CHIANG YING-YING, TAIPEI TIMES
The three seats are expected to be left vacant after their resignation, as both the DPP and KMT yesterday said they did not intend to hold further negotiations to redistribute the seats or hold make-up elections to fill the places.
Lin Pin-kuan (林炳坤), head of the eight-member alliance, explained that the decision of the three to quit was intended to stop what he called "groundless attacks" against the alliance.
Lin said the alliance had "never taken the initiative to pursue the seats."
"In the face of a ruthless attack from our colleagues, the non-partisan alliance decided to call it quits and return the three conveners' seats to the pan-blue and pan-green camps. We don't want them any more," Lin said.
There are three conveners for each of the 12 standing committees.
Leaders of the DPP, KMT, PFP and TSU caucuses originally agreed in a negotiation that their caucuses should enjoy 14, 11, eight and three convener's seats, respectively, according to their representation in the legislature.
However, after the alliance officially registered with the Legislative Yuan on Monday, it was also entitled to a share in the convener's seats and seats in the ad hoc Procedure Committee.
According to Lu, the alliance in fact only requested one convener's seat and one seat on the Procedure Committee according to its representation.
But the KMT and PFP caucuses decided to offer the alliance one convener's seat each during the latest negotiation held on Tuesday, making a total of two, in what was an effort to have the alliance give up its bid for the Procedure Committee, Lu said.
The DPP later also decided to offer one convener's seat to the alliance, eventually bringing the alliance's entitlement to three, Lu added.
Also, Lu said, it was these caucuses that decided which committee openings to offer to the alliance.
"The negotiation mechanism was open. It is very unfair that our colleagues from both the opposition and ruling camps are making all kinds of false allegations against us," Lu said.
In addition to the relatively high number of convener's seats enjoyed by the alliance, a main target of attack was Yen's becoming a co-convener of the Economics and Energy Committee.
Legislators including PFP's Chou Hsi-wei (
Yen, however, said he did not join the Economics and Energy Committee of his own accord; his membership of the committee was decided by lot.
As the committee was one of the three where openings were offered and he happened to be the only legislator from the non-partisan alliance in that committee, the convener's seat was awarded to him, Yen said.
Chen yesterday expressed her approval of Yen's decision to quit.
Chen said she had warned Yen on Wednesday that he would become a "blockhead" if he accepted the convener position, as that would make him a scapegoat in a string of scandals exposed recently, which allegedly involve many DPP legislators.
"The Ministry of Justice is reluctant to continue its investigation into all these cases because they involve a lot of DPP people. What it is going to do? Of course, aim at you," Chen told Yen.
By the same standard according to which she had asked Yen to quit, Chen yesterday challenged Ker Chien-ming (
Denying the allegations, Ker yesterday said he reserved the right to file a slander suit against Chen.
See story:
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