DPP lawmakers yesterday forced, and won, a vote in the legislature's National Defense Committee on the navy's 2003 budget to buy four Kidd-class destroyers from the US.
The development reversed the result of a joint meeting of the defense and budget committees on Wednesday, which concluded that the Kidds' budget should be decided by vote on the floor of the legislature.
DPP lawmakers accused KMT Legislator Liao Wan-ju (廖婉如), who chaired Wednesday's meeting, of violating meeting rules by ending the meeting without resolving the differences of opinions between lawmakers with a vote.
As Liao wound up the meeting, she announced that, because that there were so many different opinions over the Kidds' deal, the case should be sent to the floor for discussion.
The DPP lawmakers on the committee argued that the case could have been resolved by a vote.
Yesterday, as the defense and budget committees met for the last time to screen the defense budget for next year, the DPP lawmakers once again demanded a vote on the budget for the Kidds.
They succeeded in putting the issue on the agenda for yesterday's meeting, which was originally only going to discuss the budgets for the Chung Shan Institute of Science and Technology and the National Security Bureau.
The PFP insists that the proposed Kidds budget be shelved for one year.
The KMT supports the Kidds budget but only if the navy considers leasing, rather than buying, the Kidds from the US or asking for loans from the US to buy the four ships.
The vote went along party lines, with the 16 DPP lawmakers and two from the TSU defeating the 16 legislators from the KMT and PFP, who all voted against.
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