Newly elected legislators reported to the Legislative Yuan on Feb. 1 and held their first official meeting on Tuesday, but its disoriented state has highlighted new legislators’ inexperience.
The legislative election last month resulted in none of the major political parties holding more than half of the total 113 seats — the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) won 52, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) won 51, the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) won eight, and two independent seats are held by KMT-friendly legislators. This means that negotiations between parties would be crucial to passing legislation.
With KMT legislator-at-large Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) becoming the new legislative speaker, 54 of the 113 seats are also taken by newcomers, with 34 from the KMT, leading to an unpredictable future for the legislature. Despite this, many political observers held a positive outlook, saying that new voices could bring a fresh atmosphere to the legislature.
However, the run-up to Tuesday’s meeting suggests that the KMT and TPP caucuses are unfamiliar with the Legislative Yuan’s procedural rules. KMT caucus convener Fu Kun-chi on Feb. 7 issued a press release petitioning for an extraordinary meeting for Premier Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) to report on Feb. 17 regarding cimbuterol found in pork in Taichung — despite political parties’ agreement on Feb. 5 to have the first meeting on Tuesday.
Citing the Constitution on the holding of biannual legislative sessions between February and May and between September and December, and extraordinary sessions being called at other times, the DPP caucus questioned why the KMT would call an extraordinary session during an official session period.
The KMT caucus on Feb. 15 urged Han to hold consultations the next day regarding Chen. Han’s office refused, saying that consultations would be held a day prior to the previously agreed opening meeting. Recognizing his ignorance of the law and legislative procedure, Fu on Feb. 17 appeared to shift the blame by saying that the press release was a “typographical error” made by a party worker, who would be punished.
Confusion continued on Monday last week as the TPP caucus rejected the KMT’s proposal to have Chen’s food safety report a day later, but sent an urgent notice later the same day to the DPP and KMT caucuses asking them to attend negotiations in less than an hour. Negotiations failed as the notice was too short.
The KMT caucus’ legislators also proposed a change to the meeting agenda early on Tuesday, asking Chen to make a food safety report before his general policy address, but withdrew the proposal two hours later, saying that it supported the TPP’s proposal.
The first meeting on Tuesday opened in a chaos, as the KMT staged a boycott of Chen’s general policy address by swarming the podium. Pushing and yelling occurred when a new DPP legislator tried to snatch new KMT Legislator Lo Chih-chiang’s (羅智強) microphone.
Responding to the turmoil, Han called for a 10-minute break and urged lawmakers to “consider policies rationally” and “maintain order in the chamber” before resuming the session. The food safety report on Friday was also disrupted by Han a few times, asking for “mutual respect among legislators and government officials” to share the 15-minute Q&A time, as a few new KMT legislators refused to let Chen speak.
It is understandable that new legislators would want to prove their worth and raise their profile, but as lawmakers, legislators should first familiarize themselves with the Constitution, laws and legislative procedures.
The new legislative caucuses and legislators must also put their political stunts aside and step up their game. They should focus on more pressing issues or important bills concerning the public, such as monitoring the widespread tainted chili powder instead of the seemingly isolated case of tainted pork, rather than getting caught up in trivial political debates on basic procedural rules and letting voters’ expectations down.
The government and local industries breathed a sigh of relief after Shin Kong Life Insurance Co last week said it would relinquish surface rights for two plots in Taipei’s Beitou District (北投) to Nvidia Corp. The US chip-design giant’s plan to expand its local presence will be crucial for Taiwan to safeguard its core role in the global artificial intelligence (AI) ecosystem and to advance the nation’s AI development. The land in dispute is owned by the Taipei City Government, which in 2021 sold the rights to develop and use the two plots of land, codenamed T17 and T18, to the
Taiwan’s first case of African swine fever (ASF) was confirmed on Tuesday evening at a hog farm in Taichung’s Wuci District (梧棲), trigging nationwide emergency measures and stripping Taiwan of its status as the only Asian country free of classical swine fever, ASF and foot-and-mouth disease, a certification it received on May 29. The government on Wednesday set up a Central Emergency Operations Center in Taichung and instituted an immediate five-day ban on transporting and slaughtering hogs, and on feeding pigs kitchen waste. The ban was later extended to 15 days, to account for the incubation period of the virus
The ceasefire in the Middle East is a rare cause for celebration in that war-torn region. Hamas has released all of the living hostages it captured on Oct. 7, 2023, regular combat operations have ceased, and Israel has drawn closer to its Arab neighbors. Israel, with crucial support from the United States, has achieved all of this despite concerted efforts from the forces of darkness to prevent it. Hamas, of course, is a longtime client of Iran, which in turn is a client of China. Two years ago, when Hamas invaded Israel — killing 1,200, kidnapping 251, and brutalizing countless others
US President Donald Trump has announced his eagerness to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un while in South Korea for the APEC summit. That implies a possible revival of US-North Korea talks, frozen since 2019. While some would dismiss such a move as appeasement, renewed US engagement with North Korea could benefit Taiwan’s security interests. The long-standing stalemate between Washington and Pyongyang has allowed Beijing to entrench its dominance in the region, creating a myth that only China can “manage” Kim’s rogue nation. That dynamic has allowed Beijing to present itself as an indispensable power broker: extracting concessions from Washington, Seoul
RSS