Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday said opposition party lawmakers had “sneak attacked” the Cabinet by sending a bill passed by the legislature just before the start of the Lunar New Year holiday.
The Cabinet has made a request for reconsideration through an impromptu meeting, Cho said.
The premier made the remarks in response to questions from reporters on statements made by members of opposition parties that he should resign if the Cabinet fails to reconsider amendments to the Public Officials Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法).
Photo courtesy of the Executive Yuan
The Cabinet on Friday night said it would ask the legislature to hold a revote on legislation that would tighten requirements for petitions to initiate a recall of an elected official.
The Legislative Yuan on Dec. 20 last year passed amendments to the act requiring petition signatories to submit a copy of their national identification. Although it passed the third reading last month, the legislature only on Friday sent the bill to the president.
The Cabinet during a provisional meeting asked lawmakers to reconsider the amendments, the third time the Cabinet has requested a revote in an attempt to overturn the bills.
The Executive Yuan said that the amendments were “difficult to implement” because they raised the thresholds for recall petitions, “exceedingly restricting” the public’s right to recall an elected official and “significantly increasing the burden” of local electoral authorities.
Cho also expressed dismay at the legislature sending the proposal at 4:47pm the day before the Lunar New Year holiday begins, calling it “naked political calculation.”
The legislature should not have done this as public workers were about to clock out and preparing to return home to spend the holiday with their families, he said.
While opposition lawmakers said he should be “struck out” as premier if the Cabinet’s request for reconsideration failed again following two prior unsuccessful attempts, Cho, in a baseball reference, said that he has been pitched “three balls.”
The Democratic Progressive Party yesterday said it supported the Cabinet’s efforts to seek judicial remedies “against the legislature’s mishandling” of the bills.
Opposition lawmakers should not abuse the power granted to them as a means to create political turmoil, it added.
Separately yesterday, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Wang Hung-wei (王鴻薇) said Cho was “paranoid” in saying that the legislature “sneak attacked” the Cabinet.
Wang said that Cho blamed Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), but he should know better, as Han just returned to Taiwan from the US in the early hours of Friday.
Taiwan People’s Party Acting Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) called Cho incompetent, saying that Cho’s Cabinet could do nothing but file a request for the legislature’s reconsideration.
This is the third time that Cho’s Cabinet had filed a request for reconsideration, Huang said, urging Cho to resign as premier if the request is again rejected by the legislature.
UPDATED (3:40pm): A suspected gas explosion at a shopping mall in Taichung this morning has killed four people and injured 20 others, as emergency responders continue to investigate. The explosion occurred on the 12th floor of the Shin Kong Mitsukoshi in Situn District (西屯) at 11:33am. One person was declared dead at the scene, while three people were declared deceased later after receiving emergency treatment. Another 20 people sustained major or minor injuries. The Taichung Fire Bureau said it received a report of the explosion at 11:33am and sent rescuers to respond. The cause of the explosion is still under investigation, it said. The National Fire
ACCOUNTABILITY: The incident, which occured at a Shin Kong Mitsukoshi Department Store in Taichung, was allegedly caused by a gas explosion on the 12th floor Shin Kong Group (新光集團) president Richard Wu (吳昕陽) yesterday said the company would take responsibility for an apparent gas explosion that resulted in four deaths and 26 injuries at Shin Kong Mitsukoshi Zhonggang Store in Taichung yesterday. The Taichung Fire Bureau at 11:33am yesterday received a report saying that people were injured after an explosion at the department store on Section 3 of Taiwan Boulevard in Taichung’s Situn District (西屯). It sent 56 ambulances and 136 paramedics to the site, with the people injured sent to Cheng Ching Hospital’s Chung Kang Branch, Wuri Lin Shin Hospital, Taichung Veterans General Hospital or Chung
‘TAIWAN-FRIENDLY’: The last time the Web site fact sheet removed the lines on the US not supporting Taiwanese independence was during the Biden administration in 2022 The US Department of State has removed a statement on its Web site that it does not support Taiwanese independence, among changes that the Taiwanese government praised yesterday as supporting Taiwan. The Taiwan-US relations fact sheet, produced by the department’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, previously stated that the US opposes “any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side; we do not support Taiwan independence; and we expect cross-strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means.” In the updated version published on Thursday, the line stating that the US does not support Taiwanese independence had been removed. The updated
‘LAWFUL USE’: The last time a US warship transited the Taiwan Strait was on Oct. 20 last year, and this week’s transit is the first of US President Donald Trump’s second term Two US military vessels transited the Taiwan Strait from Sunday through early yesterday, the Ministry of National Defense said in a statement, the first such mission since US President Donald Trump took office last month. The two vessels sailed south through the Strait, the ministry said, adding that it closely monitored nearby airspace and waters at the time and observed nothing unusual. The ministry did not name the two vessels, but the US Navy identified them as the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Ralph Johnson and the Pathfinder-class survey ship USNS Bowditch. The ships carried out a north-to-south transit from
RSS