Legislative caucuses yesterday agreed to halve the number of legislative seats by 2008, but it was doubtful the constitutional amendment to do so would be passed before the March 20 presidential election.
The legislature's Constitutional Amendment Committee reached an agreement yesterday to reduce the number of seats from 225 to 113.
Legislative terms would also be lengthened from three years to four.
The agreement states that cities and counties should elect 73 legislators in total, with at least one legislator in each city and county. It said the single-member-district system will be adopted.
Aboriginals in the plains area will elect three legislators, as will Aboriginals in mountainous areas. Thirty-four will be legislators at large or lawmakers chosen by overseas Taiwanese.
To protect women's right to participate in politics, the committee resolution said the number of lawmakers of any sex cannot be less than 30 percent of all legislators, meaning there should be at least 34 female legislators.
Although the caucuses agreed on the amendments, there are still eight other articles that require committee negotiation. If the caucuses cannot reach an agreement on the other articles, it is expected the changes will not get passed before the election.
Nevertheless, the pan-green camp showed optimism the article on reducing the number of seats could be passed before March 20.
"This Friday we will move to discuss this article in the legislature so that cross-party negotiations can be conducted to allow extra sittings to pass the article," DPP caucus leader Tsai Huang-liang (
But the pan-blue camp insisted the article on the number of legislators could not be separated from the other changes.
"All articles will need to be discussed in the committee and agreed on before the bundle of articles returns to the legislature and gets its second and third readings," KMT caucus leader Liao Feng-te (
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