KMT Caucus Has Tricks New and Old

A mere two weeks into the new legislative session, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus has already given the public and its Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and Non-Partisan Solidarity Union (NPSU) counterparts a taste of its two-thirds majority in the Legislative Yuan.

On Feb. 27, during the first Procedure Committee meeting, the KMT blocked several bills from advancing to a review in their respective legislative committees. Among them was a draft bill that would require the KMT to return its stolen assets, the Cabinet's request to abolish the Organic Law of the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall Management Office (中正紀念堂管理處組織條例), to amend the Income Tax Law (所得稅法) and to abolish tax-exempt status for military personnel, civil servants and public school teachers.

Moreover, despite KMT presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou's (馬英九) insistence on the importance of letting sunshine bills pass, the KMT caucus on Tuesday chose to ignore a legislative decision and pushed proposed amendments to the Public Functionary Assets Disclosure Law (公職人員財產申報法), the Civil Servants Conflict of Interests Prevention Act (公務人員利益迴避法) and the Political Donation Law (政治獻金法) back to a first reading, citing no urgent need to put the amendments directly to a second reading.

Then there was the "winner takes all" approach, in which the KMT lawmakers dominated the Legislative Yuan's committee head elections on Monday, winning 15 of the 16 seats in the eight standing committees.

The KMT caucus' aggression even angered its longtime ally, NPSU Legislator Yen Ching-piao (顏清標), who was annoyed at the KMT caucus for failing to keep its promise to leave at least one committee top job for the NPSU.

There was also the brazen demonstration of indifference to conflicts of interest by a number of KMT lawmakers, including Wu Ching-chih (吳清池) and Chiu Yi (邱毅), who despite being embroiled in legal cases, shamelessly signed up to be members of the Judiciary Committee and the Organic Laws and Statutes Committee, with Wu actually elected as one of the committee heads.

In view of the ongoing madness in the legislature, who should be held responsible, the KMT or Ma?

It appears that the KMT presidential hopeful has no influence of any sort over his party's lawmakers and is unable to keep them in line. Perhaps even more troubling is the fact that he did not even issue a word of condemnation toward these lawmakers' agendas.

With the March 22 presidential election almost upon us, one would think lawmakers would want to be on their best behavior to avoid doing anything that may affect their presidential candidate's electoral prospects. But apparently these lawmakers have no scruples in squandering taxpayer money by placing partisanship and self-interest above the well-being of the nation.

Pity the voters who thought they were doing something positive for the country when they cast their ballots on Jan. 12.

Taipei Times Editorial, March 6, 2008.