The May 20 presidential inauguration is apparently becoming the nation's next political battleground. While it is not surprising that Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (
Interestingly, presidential spokesman James Huang's (
However, the actual issuance of such an injunction would definitely be inadvisable from the practical and political perspectives, and would have a weak legal basis.
According to the Constitution, the Presidential and Vice Presidential Election Recall Law (
In particular, the law's Article 106 provides that upon a final court verdict overturning the election result, the original election winners will be relieved of their duties as of the date of the verdict. The law's Article 107 states that such a subsequent verdict overturning election results does not have any impact on the original election winner's performance of duties after the inauguration and before this verdict. These articles indicate that the existing law specifically provides for situations in which election win
ners are inaugurated with lawsuits seeking to overturn their victory still pending in the court.
In view of the criteria for the courts' issuance of injunctions, the PFP is unlikely to prevail anyway. One important criterion is whether there is an urgent need to prevent major harm or injury through such an injunction. Frankly speaking, one can hardly think of any harm or injury that could come from Chen's inauguration, while one can think of many that would result from an injunction against his inauguration.
Such potential harm would not only weigh heavily against such an injunction's issuance, but would also provide evidence of PFP irresponsibility in seeking the injunction.
If Chen and Lu are prohibited from taking office on May 20, what will happen to this country? The social chaos and panic are easy to imagine.
Citing the example of South Korea, where the congressional speaker is serving as acting president before courts ruled on the impeachment of President Roh Moo-hyun, the PFP is speaking about having Legislative Yuan Speaker and KMT Vice Chairman Wang Jin-pyng (
Instead, the example of South Korea should serve as a warning for the PFP and the KMT. In last Thursday's Korean congressional elections, which were perceived by many as a referendum on the impeachment of Roh by the Grand National Party, the pro-Roh Uri Party captured a surprising legislative majority for the first time, suggesting that the majority of South Koreans disapproves of the chaos and restlessness sparked by the impeachment.
If the PFP and KMT continue this charade, ignoring the people's wish for peace and stability, they will pay a hefty price in future elections.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) has caused havoc with his attempts to overturn the democratic and constitutional order in the legislature. If we look at this devolution from the context of a transition to democracy from authoritarianism in a culturally Chinese sense — that of zhonghua (中華) — then we are playing witness to a servile spirit from a millennia-old form of totalitarianism that is intent on damaging the nation’s hard-won democracy. This servile spirit is ingrained in Chinese culture. About a century ago, Chinese satirist and author Lu Xun (魯迅) saw through the servile nature of
In their New York Times bestseller How Democracies Die, Harvard political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt said that democracies today “may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders. Many government efforts to subvert democracy are ‘legal,’ in the sense that they are approved by the legislature or accepted by the courts. They may even be portrayed as efforts to improve democracy — making the judiciary more efficient, combating corruption, or cleaning up the electoral process.” Moreover, the two authors observe that those who denounce such legal threats to democracy are often “dismissed as exaggerating or
Monday was the 37th anniversary of former president Chiang Ching-kuo’s (蔣經國) death. Chiang — a son of former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), who had implemented party-state rule and martial law in Taiwan — has a complicated legacy. Whether one looks at his time in power in a positive or negative light depends very much on who they are, and what their relationship with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is. Although toward the end of his life Chiang Ching-kuo lifted martial law and steered Taiwan onto the path of democratization, these changes were forced upon him by internal and external pressures,
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus in the Legislative Yuan has made an internal decision to freeze NT$1.8 billion (US$54.7 million) of the indigenous submarine project’s NT$2 billion budget. This means that up to 90 percent of the budget cannot be utilized. It would only be accessible if the legislature agrees to lift the freeze sometime in the future. However, for Taiwan to construct its own submarines, it must rely on foreign support for several key pieces of equipment and technology. These foreign supporters would also be forced to endure significant pressure, infiltration and influence from Beijing. In other words,
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