The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus yesterday made concessions to pan-blue legislators and agreed to let Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) brief the legislature on issues relating to the National Unification Council (NUC) and guidelines, which President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) effectively ended on Tuesday.
The DPP changed its mind and accepted the demands of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and People First Party (PFP) caucuses during cross-party negotiations yesterday, one day after it had originally opposed the proposal. At the time it argued that the president's NUC announcement had nothing to do with the premier.
The DPP caucus finally gave way to the pan-blue legislators' request for fear their refusal would jeopardize the legislature's review of Hsieh Wen-ding (謝文定), the president's nominee for state public prosecutor-general, a legislator said yesterday on condition of anonymity.
The briefing is scheduled to take place on Monday.
KMT caucus whip Pan Wei-kang (潘維剛) and PFP caucus whip Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) said the premier was under the obligation to brief the legislature because the NUC issue was momentous and likely to influence all Executive Yuan policies.
They said that if Su opposes briefing the legislature, then the parties would boycott the general question-and-answer session next week.
After mediation from Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平), who said Su's briefing would be helpful to the process of cross-party reconciliation, DPP caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) made a phone call to Su, who then accepted the proposal.
"For the sake of political reconciliation, we have accommodated the KMT and PFP's idea, even though we thought the pan-blue legislators were being unreasonable," DPP caucus whip Yeh Yi-jin (葉宜津) said.
Yeh said that "in this case, the pan-blue legislators should invite President Chen to give the report in the legislature, not the premier."
In related news, legislators across all parties agreed during negotiations that they would put Hsieh Wen-ding's review on the legislative agenda as soon as possible.
Hsieh paid a courtesy call to the legislature yesterday to gain an understanding of the procedures necessary for the review.
The premier yesterday said he would respect the legislature's request for him to make a briefing on the NUC next Monday.
"The Cabinet will handle the issue by following the agreement made between the ruling and opposition parties," said Government Information Office Minister Cheng Wen-tsang (鄭文燦) on behalf of Su when approached by reporters yesterday.
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