Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislative caucus members blasted their pan-blue counterparts for dereliction of duty yesterday, saying that the pan-blue legislators not only missed their committee meetings, but even canceled inter-party negotiations on the budget for state-owned enterprises so that they could "focus" on the recount.
As the recount began yesterday, most pan-blue legislators were absent from the Legislative Yuan, and most committee meetings were canceled due to insufficient attendance.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and People First Party (PFP) have mobilized their legislators to return to their constituencies to help with the recount.
While the Judiciary Committee and Transportation Committee were conducting investigations yesterday, the Organic Laws and Statutes Committee and the Economics and Energy Committee meetings were canceled.
Only the Education and Cultural Committee and the Finance Committee were able to muster the necessary manpower to hold meetings to review bills and question government officials.
"There were two committee meetings canceled [yesterday] morning, with 21 DPP legislators and only five pan-blue legislators present. This is very disappointing," Legislator Tsai Huang-liang (蔡煌瑯), the director-general of the DPP caucus, said.
"The recount belongs to the judges and the lawyers, and it has nothing to do with the legislators. Yet the pan-blue legislators abandoned their duties and went to the courts to be cheerleaders instead. Further, because Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (
Wang also urged the legislators to return to the legislature today.
"[Yesterday was] a rare day, because it is the first time we have had a presidential election recount since the Constitution was adopted for the Republic of China. Each caucus has different needs, and things would get better after today," Wang said.
"Each committee only needs one-third of the members to proceed with its meeting, and I hope the legislators can also participate in the committee meetings from [today] on," Wang said.
Wang responded to the cancelation of the negotiation by saying that the time lost can be made up later and it won't affect the negotiation.
The KMT caucus, however, denied the DPP's accusation, saying that it was the DPP's own fault that the committee meetings were aborted.
"As long as the DPP legislators are all present in the committee, the meetings can proceed without problem. If the DPP really went ahead with the meetings, could the opposing parties not return to counter the governing party?" KMT caucus deputy secretary-general Huang Teh-fu (
"But the DPP legislators are busy with the party's primaries, and they are still criticizing others for not coming to the meetings," Huang said.
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
SECURITY: To protect the nation’s Internet cables, the navy should use buoys marking waters within 50m of them as a restricted zone, a former navy squadron commander said A Chinese cargo ship repeatedly intruded into Taiwan’s contiguous and sovereign waters for three months before allegedly damaging an undersea Internet cable off Kaohsiung, a Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) investigation revealed. Using publicly available information, the Liberty Times was able to reconstruct the Shunxing-39’s movements near Taiwan since Double Ten National Day last year. Taiwanese officials did not respond to the freighter’s intrusions until Friday last week, when the ship, registered in Cameroon and Tanzania, turned off its automatic identification system shortly before damage was inflicted to a key cable linking Taiwan to the rest of
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
RSS