Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman and presidential candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday said he would elevate the Cabinet’s role in government, enshrine a parliamentary system into the Constitution and create the position of prime minister if elected.
As Taiwan has experienced three transitions of power since its first presidential elections in 1996, Ko said he has been considering whether the nation’s political problems are in part caused by the dominance of seven elected officials: the president and the mayors of the six special municipalities.
“The winner takes it all, and there are no checks and balances whatsoever,” he said.
Photo: Tien Yu-hua, Taipei Times
Although mayors face questioning by city councilors, the president is not subject to legislative oversight, so strings can be pulled behind the scenes, he said.
Ko said his main priority would be the country’s lasting peace and stability, not his term in office.
Next year’s election is a good opportunity to end the autocratic presidential system and return the power to the people, Ko said.
If elected, he said he would abolish what he calls the “elective monarchy system” and replace it with a Cabinet-run government.
Ko said he would propose that the president’s appointment of the premier be subject to legislative consent, and that Cabinet members be appointed following legislative hearings.
He added that he would advocate reducing the number of government branches from five — the Executive, the Legislative, the Judicial, the Examination and the Control yuans — to three by removing the latter two.
He would push for the open selection of senior civil servants and board members of state-run firms, and scrap the policy that makes special central government budgets a regular practice, Ko said.
He would propose lowering the voting age to 18 from 20 and the minimum age a candidate needs to run for public office to 20 from 23, he said.
Ko said he would seek to lower the 5 percent electoral threshold that a political party must surpass to 3 percent of the overall vote to qualify for the distribution of the 34 legislator-at-large seats.
Democratic Progressive Party spokesman Chang Chih-hao (張志豪) said Ko was contradicting himself, because while he is ostensibly pushing to elevate the Cabinet’s role, he is a monarchist at heart.
CAUTION: Based on intelligence from the nation’s security agencies, MOFA has cautioned Taiwanese travelers about heightened safety risks in China-friendly countries The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday urged Taiwanese to be aware of their safety when traveling abroad, especially in countries that are friendly to China. China in June last year issued 22 guidelines that allow its courts to try in absentia and sentence to death so-called “diehard” Taiwanese independence activists, even though Chinese courts have no jurisdiction in Taiwan. Late last month, a senior Chinese official gave closed-door instructions to state security units to implement the guidelines in countries friendly to China, a government memo and a senior Taiwan security official said, based on information gathered by Taiwan’s intelligence agency. The
The National Immigration Agency (NIA) said yesterday that it will revoke the dependent-based residence permit of a Chinese social media influencer who reportedly “openly advocated for [China’s] unification through military force” with Taiwan. The Chinese national, identified by her surname Liu (劉), will have her residence permit revoked in accordance with Article 14 of the “Measures for the permission of family- based residence, long-term residence and settlement of people from the Mainland Area in the Taiwan Area,” the NIA said in a news release. The agency explained it received reports that Liu made “unifying Taiwan through military force” statements on her online
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, said yesterday that it is looking to hire 8,000 people this year, at a time when the tech giant is expanding production capacity to maintain its lead over competitors. To attract talent, TSMC would launch a large-scale recruitment campaign on campuses across Taiwan, where a newly recruited engineer with a master’s degree could expect to receive an average salary of NT$2.2 million (US$60,912), which is much higher than the 2023 national average of NT$709,000 for those in the same category, according to government statistics. TSMC, which accounted for more than 60 percent
Tung Tzu-hsien (童子賢), a Taiwanese businessman and deputy convener of the nation’s National Climate Change Committee, said yesterday that “electrical power is national power” and nuclear energy is “very important to Taiwan.” Tung made the remarks, suggesting that his views do not align with the country’s current official policy of phasing out nuclear energy, at a forum organized by the Taiwan People’s Party titled “Challenges and Prospects of Taiwan’s AI Industry and Energy Policy.” “Taiwan is currently pursuing industries with high added- value and is developing vigorously, and this all requires electricity,” said the chairman
RSS