Fri, Jan 19, 2024 page1

• Han Kuo-yu to run for speaker

  • By Shelley Shan / Staff reporter
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  Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator-at-large-elect Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) yesterday announced that he is teaming up with KMT Legislator Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) to run for legislative speaker and deputy speaker respectively, although Chiang said he would make way for a Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) legislator to become deputy speaker if the party is willing to work with the KMT.

  The former Kaohsiung mayor announced his bid for speaker after the KMT emerged as the largest party in the legislature following the legislative elections on Saturday. No party holds a majority.

  “We know that electing a president is not enough to create a democracy of the people, by the people and for the people. What we need is people-oriented legislation with a lasting legacy, and lawmakers who review bills and budget plans, and oversee the government’s policy execution,” he said.

  

  Former Kaohsiung mayor Han Kuo-yu, right, embraces Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Johnny Chiang, second right, at a campaign event in Taichung on Dec. 23 last year.

  Photo: Taipei Times

  “I thank Johnny for agreeing to work with me for this fight. We hope to resume the Legislative Yuan’s functions to oversee the government, rather than serving merely as a legislative agency of the Democratic Progressive Party [DPP] government,” he said.

  “However, we are also clear that we cannot fulfill our promises to about 8 million voters who voted for the KMT and the TPP without the two parties forming a united front,” Han said.

  “As long as our friends in the TPP are willing to work with us, Legislator Chiang is willing to pass this chance to run for deputy speaker to a TPP legislator, which would facilitate the unity of opposition parties. This is the only way for the DPP to feel the rage of the 60 percent of the voters who did not vote for them,” he said.

  TPP legislator-at-large-elect Vivian Huang (黃珊珊) on Facebook reiterated that all speaker candidates should first respond in definitive terms to the appeals for legislative reforms that the TPP presented on Monday.

  “We will not negotiate or exchange benefits with any individual candidate in private,” she said.

  Asked on Tuesday about being Han’s deputy, TPP legislator-at-large-elect Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) said that he has “absolutely no interest” in being deputy speaker.

  TPP Chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) also said that a Han-Huang Kuo-chang ticket is “hard for him to imagine.”

  Legislative Speaker You Si-kun (游錫?), who topped the DPP’s legislator-at-large list, is expected to run for the position again. The DPP has yet to announce who would serve as his deputy or whether it would work with the TPP.

  “A DPP-TPP partnership is only possible if the TPP voluntarily comes to us,” DPP caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) said on a talk show on Tuesday, adding that Huang Kuo-chang’s demand that the KMT and the DPP respond to the TPP’s appeals was only for show.

  According to the Method for Mutual Election of the Speaker and Deputy Speaker by Legislators (立法委員互選院長副院長辦法), one-third of the 113-member legislature must be present to form a quorum, and the speaker and deputy speaker must obtain more than half of the votes from the attendees.

  If no one gets more than half of the votes in the first round, a second round of votes between the top two candidates would be held, with the person who obtains majority of the votes being elected.

  The speaker and deputy speaker could also be re-elected, but more than one-third of all legislators must propose such a motion and more than two-thirds of the attendees must approve the re-election.
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