The performance of the recently concluded seventh Legislative Yuan showed that a Chinese Nationalist Party-dominated (KMT) political scene in the past four years had failed to bring fruitful results to Taiwanese, analysts told a forum in Taipei yesterday.
The choice of voters to give the KMT consecutive landslide wins in the legislative elections in January 2008 and the presidential election two months later was a “bold gamble,” Lo Cheng-chung (羅承宗), a researcher at Taiwan Brain Trust, told the forum organized by the think tank about the legislature’s performance.
The KMT won 81 of 113 legislative seats, while President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) won 58 percent of the total votes in the presidential election.
However, the gamble did not pay off because the public had to pay the price of lack of checks and balances in government, instead of enjoying the efficiency and achievement of single-party dominance, Lo said.
Legislators trimmed just 0.007 percent from the 2012 central government budget, he said, a clear sign that it has failed to do its job because government agencies are known for inflating their budgets.
A total of 624 pieces of legislation were passed in four years in the session that ended on Dec. 14, with an annual average of 156, and some of those passed were highly controversial, such as the Land Expropriation Act (土地徵收條例) and the Judges’ Act (法官法), said Ku Chung-hwa (顧忠華) of the Citizen Congress Watch.
“The seventh legislature has been disappointing compared with previous legislatures in terms of quality and quantity of legislation screening,” Ku said, adding that each legislator is receiving a monthly salary of NT$180,000 and research fee of NT$500,000 to do more than what they did.
“The biggest problem for the legislature now is that it is not a domain for discussions of public policies, but a legislative bureau of the KMT,” Ku said.
People had great expectations after the electoral system underwent significant changes in 2007, with the introduction of the “single-district, two votes” system, and the number of lawmakers was dramatically trimmed from 225 to 113, which was expected to improve legislative efficiency and professionalism.
However, the results have been almost completely the opposite of what had been promised, former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislator Lin Cho-shui (林濁水) said.
However, the new system marginalized smaller parties, encouraged partisanship and dramatically increased the power of each legislator, Lin said.
Lin has proposed a two-phase overhaul aimed at improving legislative efficiency and changing the legislative electoral system. The proposal has been approved by the DPP as its main demand to appeal for voter support in next month’s legislative elections.
While the DPP may have to review why it supported the move to halve the number of lawmakers, it deserved recognition for its effort in drafting a number of bills, most of which were later blocked by the KMT in committees.
Experience shows that legislative reform cannot be achieved until the KMT loses its status as the majority party, Lin said.
SELF-RELIANCE: Taiwan would struggle to receive aid in the event of an invasion, so it must prepare to ‘hold its own’ for the first 70 days of a war, a defense expert said Taiwan should strengthen infrastructure, stock up on reserves and step up efforts to encourage Taiwanese to fight against an enemy, legislators and experts said on Tuesday last week. The comments sought to summarize what the nation should learn from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has exceeded 300 days, since Feb. 24 last year. Institute of National Defense and Security Research fellow Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲) said that the war in Ukraine highlighted the importance of being ready for war. Taiwan’s development of an “asymmetrical warfare” doctrine and extending mandatory conscription to one year is a good start to preparation of defense against a
The Central Epidemic Command Center yesterday said it would delay the lifting of the indoor mask mandate, citing public health considerations and ongoing discussions on how the policy should be implemented. Earlier this week, Centers for Disease Control Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥), who is the CECC’s spokesman, said officials from several ministries were working on the policy and an announcement would be made yesterday. However, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝), who heads the CECC, yesterday said that the policy was still under review. Wang said its implementation would be “delayed slightly” due to three main factors. First, the center
END OF SERIES: As the first generation of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines are set to expire, the CECC would no longer offer them to children younger than four years old The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday reported the nation’s first case of a person infected with the Omicron XBB.1.5 subvariant of SARS-CoV-2. The Taiwanese man in his 20s arrived from Canada on Jan. 22, said Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Deputy Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞), who is deputy head of the CECC’s medical response division. He tested positive after reporting having a runny nose and muscle soreness while in airport quarantine, Lo said. The XBB.1.5 subvariant is the dominant strain in the US, but there is no evidence to suggest that it causes more severe illness than other Omicron subvariants, he said,
NORMALIZING TIES: The delegation led by the KMT’s Johnny Chiang is to meet with British lawmakers, think tanks and business groups to discuss developments A legislative delegation led by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) arrived in the UK yesterday to rally support for Taiwan’s bid to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). Chiang heads the Legislative Yuan’s Taiwan-UK Interparliamentary Amity Association. The delegation also includes KMT legislators Ma Wen-chun (馬文君), Wen Yu-hsia (溫玉霞), Wu Sz-huai (吳斯懷), Sandy Yu (游毓蘭) and Wu I-ding (吳怡玎). The group is to meet with British lawmakers Alicia Kearns, who chairs the British House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee; Tobias Ellwood, who chairs the House Defence Select Committee; and Bob Stewart, who cochairs the
RSS