June 29, 2020
[KMT International Affairs Department] On June 28, members of the KMT legislative caucus entered the Legislative chamber and locked themselves inside for protest, a move to express opposition to the President Tsai Ing-wen’s nomination of Chen Chu, former Secretary-General of the Presidential Office, as President of the Control Yuan. On the morning of June 29, the KMT caucus members occupied the podium in the Legislative chamber, demanding that President Tsai who is DPP’s chairwoman as well, withdraw Chen’s nomination.
The KMT believes that President Tsai’s nominations for the Presidency of the Control Yuan and its members are the worst in history as Tsai unscrupulously tends to reward her loyalists. To act as a responsible opposition party in the ROC (commonly known as Taiwan), the KMT must strongly oppose President Tsai’s nomination and take necessary action to prevent the DPP from resorting to strong-arm tactics to pass the nomination through the Legislative Yuan.
When President Tsai first announced that Chen would be nominated for the presidency of the Control Yuan early June, the society gave poor responses. According to an opinion poll conducted by TVBS recently, approximately 40% of the respondents objected to the idea that Chen would take the helm of the Control Yuan. Another poll by New Power Party indicated that over 50% of respondents showed no support in that regard.
While Chen was Kaohsiung City Mayor during her 12-year terms, the Control Yuan launched investigations into a total of 58 cases involving Kaohsiung City government, including 3 successful impeached cases and 30 written censures.
It is worth noting that in an investigation into the Kaohsiung City government’s handling of a natural gas explosion case which occurred on July 13, 2014 when Chen served as mayor, the Control Yuan concluded just recently that the Kaohsiung City government inappropriately used private donations to purchase equipment for city government agencies to conduct official businesses at the time. Even now, despite the requests of the Control Yuan, Chen fails to clarify doubts surrounding city government’s 59 projects and its review process.
Knowing that Chen lacks integrity and so should be disqualified from the presidency of the Control Yuan, the KMT strongly believes that the nomination for other Control Yuan members by President Tsai serve as a rewarding for the DPP’s political loyalists. This is especially true after the DPP has won an overwhelming advantage in every branch of the central government.
Take a closer look at the nomination, one can find that approximately 90% of nominees have direct or indirect links with the DPP. This will no doubt undermine the credibility and impartiality of the Control Yuan. Therefore, the KMT strongly urges that President Tsai should withdraw nomination of Chen as well as those who are disqualified.
Taiwan has been democratized for a few decades. If the DPP continues to act arrogantly and disregard vox populi through the holding of an extraordinary legislative session in the following weeks under the assistance of other small pan-green political parties in order to seize all powers of the Executive Yuan, the Legislative Yuan, the Judicial Yuan and the Control Yuan in one hand, the DPP will definitely become a political behemoth that is unchecked.
At noon of June 29, the DPP legislators, with numerical superiority, rammed into the Legislative chamber and in a scuffle forcibly carried away KMT legislators who gathered on the podium for protest. Although the KMT legislators were outnumbered, the KMT insists that President Tsai replace her nomination for the Control Yuan in accordance with the ROC Constitution so as to ensure that the Control Yuan, overriding all political parties, can properly exercise its powers of impeachment, censure, auditing and so on.
One thing the KMT has to remind the DPP. That is, during the so-called “Sunflower Movement” or the “anti-Trade-in-Services Agreement Movement” in March 2014, then opposition DPP legislators took turns guarding the entrances of the Legislative chamber in an effort to block policemen from entering. The DPP chose to side with the protestors who illegally occupied the Legislative chamber at the time, but today carried away the KMT legislators by force who were implementing the “early deployment” and occupying the podium in the Legislative chamber only to object President Tsai’s inappropriate and preposterous nomination for the Control Yuan. The DPP always adopts double standards in dealing with public affairs, and this will definitely leave stains in the history of this nation.
