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Legislative reform 'unstoppable': Chen
Source: China Times
During a conversation over tea with journalists Wednesday, President Chen Shui-bian said that legislative reform must become a national social movement following the elections on Saturday.
Calling the desire for such a movement an "unstoppable trend," Chen said that if the opposition parties were unable to expedite legislative reform with constitutional revisions he would not rule out appealing directly to public opinion with a plebiscite to build a foundation of popular will upon which to complete democratic reform.
Chen stressed that a national plebiscite and referendum law must be in place first, and noted that the threshold for passing such a law and providing the legal basis for a public plebiscite or referendum is a simple majority of legislators. He added that legislative reform, as the objective of the national movement, could be pursued with such a legal grounding in place.
Earlier, Chen received representatives of the Legislative Reform Action League, composed of 99 private groups, including the Cheng Society, at his office. Positively responding to the league's demands for legislative "slimming" (reduction of the number of legislative seats to under 150), election system reform (single election districts, two votes per voter), and four-year legislative terms, Chen said the national stabilization alliance he proposed recently would make these three issues part of its policy platform for both ruling and opposition parties to pursue together.
In fact, Chen said, the national stabilization alliance is a legislative reform alliance. With 80 percent of the public in favor of the reduction of legislative seats, a national movement could easily form to achieve that end, Chen said, adding that when the legislative reform movement has become a national movement and an accepted mainstream value in society, no political party or individual could say "no" to it. Consequently, it is vital to explore how to make legislative reform a national movement.
Chen noted that the Democratic Progressive Party and Taiwan Solidarity Union have both signed on their support of the alliance.
Chen then declared that if the KMT, New Party and People First Party are ultimately unable to cooperate on this reform, appealing directly to public opinion via a plebiscite is possible. Then, upon this foundation of public will, all parties in the Legislature would be able to work together to achieve legislative reform.
The president asserted that the three main demands of the Legislative Action League are in line with his own views and completely agree with the objectives of the national stability alliance.
As for the question of aligning the election of the president and legislators together following the term length change of legislators from three to four years, Chen said the issue would require broad reflection on all sides to come up with the best solution.
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