President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is clueless, helpless and “sitting on a time bomb” after the corruption scandal involving former Executive Yuan secretary--general Lin Yi-shih (林益世), with few policy options left, members of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said.
Not only has the scandal, involving one of Ma’s most trusted aides, tarnished the president’s image, it has also raised doubts as to whether he will be able to muster enough votes to pass a controversial amendment on the relaxation of rules governing the level of residue of the livestock feed additive ractopamine in beef imports in the upcoming extra legislative session, which is scheduled to begin on July 24, they said.
“It is going to be even more difficult for Ma to get the amendment to the Act Governing Food Sanitation (食品衛生管理法) passed in the extra session because the latest polls show that his approval rating has fallen to as low as 15 percent,” DPP Legislator Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) said.
Several Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers have privately expressed their reluctance to vote on the amendment and are hoping that in the wake of his falling poll figures Ma will now change his mind about pushing it through the legislature, Chen said.
In addition, Ma’s low approval ratings mean that he lacks the necessary popular mandate relax the ban on ractopamine by an executive order, Chen added.
The scandal has dealt a major blow to the already shaky Ma administration, which has been plagued by a string of unpopular policy decisions such as fuel and electricity price increases and the dispute over US beef, since Ma was re-elected.
As a result, the morale of KMT members in the administrative and legislative branch is at its lowest point in years, Chen said.
The DPP issued a five-point demand to Ma on Wednesday, asking the president to officially apologize to the nation and reshuffle the Cabinet.
Based on Ma’s personality and political philosophy, which Chen described as “unpredictable,” he said he did not expect Ma to respond to the demands.
Even if Ma replaced Premier Sean Chen (陳冲), there would not be enough time for the new premier to coordinate the interagency effort needed to win the support of legislators on the US beef issue, he said.
The DPP insists that the issue of ractopamine should be dealt with in accordance with international standards agreed upon at the UN Codex Alimentarius Commission meeting, DPP Policy Research Committee executive director Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) said, adding that the party’s position would remain the same even if no agreement was reached at this week’s meeting in Rome.
Wu said Ma did not have the “guts” to relax the ban by executive order and thereby disregard the wishes of a majority of Taiwanese and the divided KMT caucus.
After all of Ma’s policy mistakes, “I think the US somehow understands that, in terms of the US beef dispute, the DPP is a victim of those policy mistakes and should not be the scapegoat,” Wu said.
However, the KMT has a majority in the legislature, which means the DPP is also short on choices as it waits to see how the Lin scandal plays out and its political ramification for the upcoming extra legislative session.
“It’s not like we are taking pleasure at the KMT’s misfortune. However, the fact is that Ma and the KMT have repeatedly shot themselves in the foot over the past few months on the issue of fuel and electricity prices, US beef and now the Lin Yi-shih corruption scandal,” said a DPP official, who wished to remain anonymous because he was not authorized to speak on the matter.
“On the beef issue, the US has misjudged Ma twice — in 2009 and this year, assuming that he would be easily able to work out a solution acceptable to his party, but that has proven to not be the case,” the official added.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
RSS