Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairman Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) is set to announce the party’s plan to initiate a no-confidence motion today against what it described as Presdient Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) administration’s destruction of the Constitution and political destabilization.
Su plans to skip the Double Ten National Day ceremony and to make the announcement at a press conference titled: “Action for democracy. No-confidence motion for the people,” DPP spokesperson Lin Chun-hsien (林俊憲) said after the party’s weekly Central Standing Committee meeting yesterday.
Su said last week that the DPP would in two weeks choose the best of three constitutional mechanisms — recall, impeachment, or a no-confidence motion — to hold Ma accountable for the damage he has done to the Constitution, as well as resolve the political crisis sparked by the dispute between Ma and Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) and wiretapping controversies in the judiciary.
Lin declined to confirm whether the no-confidence motion would be the only action taken by the DPP, but called on Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers to be “courageous enough” to stand up against their own party and support whichever proposal the DPP makes, since all three options would require votes from KMT legislators to pass.
However, it seems as if the KMT is trying to avoid the DPP launching a no-confidence motion against the Cabinet — a move which could lead to dissolution of the legislature — by paralyzing the legislative plenaries, Lin said.
“It’s obvious that the KMT is doing so out of fear of the opposition’s reactions and upsetting mainstream public opinion,” he said.
Separately yesterday, the DPP caucus criticized the KMT caucus for setting an unprecedented example by voiding the agenda of the next two legislative plenaries.
DPP Legislator Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁), the convener of Tuesday’s meeting of the legislature’s Procedure Committee, said the KMT caucus had vetoed all legislative proposals submitted by opposition lawmakers and did not propose any bills at the meeting, meaning that there are no proposals on the plenary agenda for tomorrow’s or next Tuesday’s session.
Proposed amendments to the Code of Court Martial Procedure (軍事審判法) and bills related to the monitoring of cross-strait agreements, the proposed nuclear referendum and legislative reform were all blocked by the KMT, Chen said.
DPP caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) said the KMT caucus “is now in an awkward position” since it criticized the DPP for paralyzing the legislature by boycotting Premier Jiang Yi-huah’s (江宜樺) mandatory report, but is now doing the same thing.
“It is ironic that the KMT caucus is paralyzing the plenaries [out of fear that the DPP will table a no-confidence motion]. However, they cannot do this forever,” Ker said.
Ker said the DPP is demanding that Ma, Jiang and Prosecutor-General Huang Shih-ming (黃世銘), who stands accused of wiretapping the legislature and illegally informing the president about an ongoing investigation — an unconstitutional practice — all step down.
KMT caucus whip Lin Hung-chih (林鴻池) denied the DPP’s accusations, saying that the KMT vetoed the proposals because the DPP had violated a consensus reached at previous cross-party negotiations.
Source: Taipei Times - 2013/10/10
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