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By Lai Hsiao-tung and Esme Yeh / Staff reporter, with staff writer and CNA
Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday said opposition party lawmakers had “sneak attacked” the Cabinet by sending a bill passed by the legislature just before the start of the Lunar New Year holiday.
The Cabinet has made a request for reconsideration through an impromptu meeting, Cho said.
The premier made the remarks in response to questions from reporters on statements made by members of opposition parties that he should resign if the Cabinet fails to reconsider amendments to the Public Officials Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法).
Photo courtesy of the Executive Yuan
The Cabinet on Friday night said it would ask the legislature to hold a revote on legislation that would tighten requirements for petitions to initiate a recall of an elected official.
The Legislative Yuan on Dec. 20 last year passed amendments to the act requiring petition signatories to submit a copy of their national identification. Although it passed the third reading last month, the legislature only on Friday sent the bill to the president.
The Cabinet during a provisional meeting asked lawmakers to reconsider the amendments, the third time the Cabinet has requested a revote in an attempt to overturn the bills.
The Executive Yuan said that the amendments were “difficult to implement” because they raised the thresholds for recall petitions, “exceedingly restricting” the public’s right to recall an elected official and “significantly increasing the burden” of local electoral authorities.
Cho also expressed dismay at the legislature sending the proposal at 4:47pm the day before the Lunar New Year holiday begins, calling it “naked political calculation.”
The legislature should not have done this as public workers were about to clock out and preparing to return home to spend the holiday with their families, he said.
While opposition lawmakers said he should be “struck out” as premier if the Cabinet’s request for reconsideration failed again following two prior unsuccessful attempts, Cho, in a baseball reference, said that he has been pitched “three balls.”
The Democratic Progressive Party yesterday said it supported the Cabinet’s efforts to seek judicial remedies “against the legislature’s mishandling” of the bills.
Opposition lawmakers should not abuse the power granted to them as a means to create political turmoil, it added.
Separately yesterday, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Wang Hung-wei (王鴻薇) said Cho was “paranoid” in saying that the legislature “sneak attacked” the Cabinet.
Wang said that Cho blamed Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), but he should know better, as Han just returned to Taiwan from the US in the early hours of Friday.
Taiwan People’s Party Acting Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) called Cho incompetent, saying that Cho’s Cabinet could do nothing but file a request for the legislature’s reconsideration.
This is the third time that Cho’s Cabinet had filed a request for reconsideration, Huang said, urging Cho to resign as premier if the request is again rejected by the legislature.
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