On the morning of May 17, a voting conflict broke out in the island's legislative body. This was the first fierce conflict since the new democratic representative session began, and it can be regarded as the most intense in the past few years.
The conflict caused several representatives from the Blue and Green parties to be injured and sent to hospital. Among them, Representative Zhong Jiabin of the Democratic Progressive Party rushed to the rostrum and threw Chen Qinghui, a female representative of the Kuomintang, to the ground. Another representative of the Democratic Progressive Party, Guo Guowen, snatched the voting documents from Zhou Wanlai, a member of the legislative body. These are things that are relatively taboo in general parliamentary conflicts. The former attacks the weak and is suspected of being indecent, while the latter attacks the staff of the legislative body and hurts innocent neutrals.
Under the joint opposition of the blue and white parties, Shen Boyang, a member of the Democratic Progressive Party, climbed onto the rostrum and was pulled down. He fell to the ground and was injured. Due to the fierce conflict and unwillingness to give in, the proceedings were voted on in chaos. The green camp lost to the joint efforts of blue and white, and the vote passed the second reading. The green camp mobilized hundreds of students to demonstrate in front of the legislative body, like the "Sunflower Movement" Scene reconstruction. Amid concerns about intensifying conflicts, the head of the legislative body, Han Kuo-yu, announced that the third reading will be completed on the 21st of this month.
The content of this vote involves the expansion of powers of Taiwan’s legislative body. Among the important provisions, five provisions include requiring Taiwan leaders to regularly report to the legislative body and accept questions and answers, the legislative body has the power to investigate, clarify the crime of contempt of the legislative body, strengthen the right to consent to personnel, and elect the head of the legislative body by name. These five articles expand the power of the legislative branch and provide more powerful checks and balances to the executive branch.
Due to the flaws of the current system, once Taiwan’s leaders are elected, they are not accountable to anyone. Especially on the premise that there is no need to seek re-election, if you lack self-requirements, you can definitely go your own way. In the last two years of her tenure, Tsai Ing-wen did not express her position on any major issues, did not accept media interviews, and completely hid behind the scenes. However, the irony is that because of Tsai Ing-wen's disappearance, the public has forgotten Tsai Ing-wen, which has kept her public opinion polls from falling.
Allowing Taiwanese leaders to report to the legislative body and accept questions was once a common proposition of blue and green. It was only strongly proposed by the green camp when they were in opposition, but was not mentioned at all when they were in power. This time the Blue and White team up to ask Taiwanese leaders to report to the legislative body. Even the Green camp does not dare to completely oppose it. However, the two sides have great differences on how to ask questions and how to respond.
In the past eight years, the Tsai Ing-wen administration has been in full power. Administrative officials have completely ignored the opposition Democratic Party and answered questions honestly and without scruples. There was even an incident where the administrative head, Su Zhenchang, cursed the KMT female representative Zheng Liwen as "shameless" when being questioned. Because the People's Republic of China does not have the power to restrain officials, not long ago it happened that Wu Zhaoxie, the head of Taiwan's foreign affairs department, had the courage to say several times, "If you have the ability, sue me for contempt of the legislative body" when being questioned. Therefore, the legislative body's proposal of "contempt" this time can be regarded as tailor-made for Wu Zhaoxie and others. The right to consent to personnel also makes officials fear the legislative body. Otherwise, when they are announced to official positions again, they may be rejected by the legislative body.
In the island’s system, the legislative body and the supervisory body are responsible for supervision and investigation respectively. Taiwan's legislative body requires investigative powers, which actually conflicts with the current system. However, the personnel of the supervisory agency are appointed by the authorities, their positions are ambiguous, and they go their own way with the legislative body, which does not reflect the deterrent effect of public opinion supervision. There were disagreements within Blue and White, but in the end Blue and White's opinions were integrated, that is, facts were formed first, and then disputes were resolved.
This is certainly not a good thing for Lai Qingde, who is already a weak government. Once the reform of Taiwan's legislative body is established, the Lai Ching-te authorities will be restrained. Therefore, Lai Qingde had earlier invited the Democratic Progressive Party caucus to hold a meeting and demanded that he turn from defense to offense. Ke Jianming was ordered to organize conflicts and threatened the opposition parties very early on to launch the most serious confrontation. After the conflict in the legislative body, Lai Qingde immediately affirmed the DPP's "resistance" and said that the legislative process was unfair.The Democratic Progressive Party and its flanks launched a public opinion war, spread various "little essays", and used "black box operations" to attack the opposition party by not allowing "item-by-item deliberation".
In the past eight years, the Democratic Progressive Party has taken advantage of its absolute advantage in the number of party members to easily eliminate the opposition parties' "resistance" and arbitrarily pass any resolution they want. Afterward, they ridiculed the Kuomintang for its incompetence and ineffective "resistance". Now that the DPP's numbers have weakened and it no longer has a voting advantage, it has returned to resorting to violent confrontation, smearing and distorting facts.
"Amnesty" for Chen Shui-bian, but Lai Qingde will not be spared.
html On May 7, Taiwan's "Mirror Weekly" reported that it was rumored that Tsai Ing-wen would "pardon" Chen Shui-bian before stepping down, and the staff unit would initiate the "pardon" operation. As a result, the island's media discussed for a week, thinking that Tsai Ing-wen would "clear the mines" for Lai Qingde. Unexpectedly, Tsai Ing-wen responded this week that "there is no such decision."Tsai Ing-wen did not "clear mines" for Lai Qingde, but deliberately dug another "hole". Someone from Tsai Ing-wen explained that because the administrative team has resigned, there is no time to complete the process. So for Lai Qingde, who is about to take office, that is, Lai Qingde, who once advocated "pardoning Chen Shui-bian" as a campaign idea, he will have "ample" time in the future to solve the so-called "exoneration" of Chen Shui-bian. The
poll shows that although the young people on the island should not care at all who Chen Shui-bian is, there is still a very high proportion of people who disagree with the "amnesty". Even among DPP supporters, there are many people who do not forgive Chen Shui-bian.
Tsai Ing-wen’s official response is: I hope Chen Shui-bian will receive proper health care, and relevant procedures must be carried out in accordance with the law.
Of course, Chen Shui-bian was overjoyed again. Afterward, he responded, "Political cases are political settlements, and justice has never been sought through legal channels." His dissatisfaction was palpable.
Ko Wenzhe, who once served as the leader of Chen Shui-bian's medical team, stated that such a major matter as the "amnesty topic" should be raised by Tsai Ing-wen herself, rather than being spread through the media. "In the end, the whole incident turned out to be just a joke."
Tsai Ing-wen was promoted and employed by Chen Shui-bian, which can be regarded as a "favor of knowing someone". But after Chen Shui-bian's incident, Tsai Ing-wen and Chen Shui-bian broke up and basically had no contact with each other. In the eight years since she took office, Tsai Ing-wen has not taken the initiative to visit Chen Shui-bian, and has avoided all topics about Chen Shui-bian. Therefore, when he was about to step down, the topic of "amnesty" suddenly came up, which was originally unthinkable.
When Tsai Ing-wen was at her lowest point four years ago, the administrative head she appointed, Lai Qingde, challenged Tsai Ing-wen to run for the party nomination and blocked her bid for re-election, under the instigation of the deep green group. At that time, a group of dark green senior citizens jointly signed a newspaper requesting that Tsai Ing-wen "make way for talents". With the blessing of dark green, Lai Qingde's first political opinion was to "pardon Chen Shui-bian" after being elected.
In the last few days, Tsai Ing-wen’s team kept raising issues in order to avenge her, such as the conclusion of the Basic Law Conference on “abolition of death” and the issues of nuclear power and green energy. Externally, there are a series of issues such as possible changes in relations between the Czech Republic and Lithuania. Lai Ching-te himself will also face problems such as cross-strait crises and the restriction of executive power caused by legislative reform. In the midst of chaos, Tsai Ing-wen's team continued to mention which pot they would not open, reminding Lai Qingde to "don't forget Chen Shui-bian."
Author丨Xu Yi, special editor of Shenzhen Satellite TV Direct News
