The eight legislative standing committees elected their respective conveners yesterday, with Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chang Ching-chung (張慶忠), who attempted to ram through the controversial cross-strait service trade agreement in March last year, sparking the Sunflower movement, being re-elected as one of the two conveners of the legislature’s Internal Administration Committee amid objections.
With the legislature’s new plenary session commencing after the Lunar New Year holiday, the KMT and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) each recommended one convener, except the Judiciary and Organic Laws and Statutes Committee, the Finance Committee and the Internal Administration Committee, which had their conveners voted for via ballot casting.
While the members of the Internal Administration Committee intended to elect the recommended candidate, the KMT’s pick of Chang met strong opposition from DPP Legislator Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁), calling on the ruling party to reconsider the candidate.
Chang responded by saying that the pushing through of the service trade agreement “was a thing of the past,” and that the two parties should now cooperate on implementing a cross-strait agreement oversight mechanism.
A vote was conducted and Chang was successfully renamed as one of the conveners of the committee, with the cross-strait service trade agreement and the draft cross-strait agreement oversight act set be reviewed.
Chang’s predecessor, KMT Legislator Wu Yu-sheng (吳育昇), took the position from Chang in the last session that began in September last year, as the KMT caucus deemed Chang too contentious for a session commencing after the Sunflower movement.
The KMT caucus yesterday secured nine of the total 16 convener seats, while the DPP caucus had seven. The conveners of each committee are set to take turns presiding over committee meetings and have the right to decide on the order of bills to be reviewed.
Referring to Chang’s reappointment, Academia Sinica researcher Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌), a leading protestor in the Sunflower movement and a member of the Taiwan March, said it is “unacceptable” as Chang does not qualify as a convener.
“It amounts to trampling on the constitutional democracy that we have been struggling to save,” Huang said.
“It is possible that Chang has not learned any lessons from his past deeds, and we are seriously pessimistic about him being the convener of the committee,” he added.
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