The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday lambasted the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for seeking to loosen up a series of legal stipulations aimed at preventing convicted criminals from taking up posts at farmers' and fishermen's associations.
Deputy Director of the DPP's Policy Research and Coordinating Committee Liang Wen-chieh (
According to Liang, the KMT has proposed a bill to revise Article 46 of the Farmer's Association Law and Article 49 of the Fishermen's Association Law in a bid to scrap current stipulations which remove personnel from their duties if found guilty of a crime in an initial verdict.
The revised version of the law would only dismiss crime-linked personnel found guilty in a court's final verdict.
In addition, Liang said the KMT also proposed to amend Article 25 of the Farmers' Association Law and Article 26 of the Fishermen's Association Law to cancel the three-term limit for the chairmanship in both organizations.
Liang, who spoke in a press conference after the DPP's weekly Central Standing Committee yesterday, said the KMT's attempts to revise these bills are intended to provide clearance for crime-linked members to stay in the organizations -- whose loyalties are traditionally tied with the KMT's "black-gold" networks.
"These bills would set free the `black-gold' practices again. The KMT's agenda is to trade favors with people in these associations with links to criminal networks in exchange for supporting the KMT in the legislative elections," Liang said.
Liang said the revisions were promised by KMT Chairman Lien Chan (
"The litigation against the presidential election results filed by the KMT and PFP is in process now. The court is about to make a final ruling on these cases at the end of September and early October," Lien was quoted as saying during a meeting.
"If the ruling is in favor of the KMT for a new election, please mobilize all your forces in the farmers' and fishermen's associations to support the KMT," he said.
DPP Deputy Secretary General Chung Chia-pin (
Meanwhile, President Chen Shui-bian (
According to the law, 75 percent of legislators are required to attend the constitutional amendment committee meeting to validate the proposed constitutional reforms.
The DPP has to prevent at least 55 legislators from skipping the meeting.
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