06.27.06

Chen’s Recall: Sun rises in the East

Posted in News at 3:15 pm by David

As everyone knew it would, the vote to recall Chen Shui-bian failed today.

June 27 (Bloomberg) — Taiwan’s President Chen Shui-bian survived a parliamentary vote to oust him after the opposition failed to muster the two-thirds majority required.

Opposition lawmakers sought to trigger a public vote on whether to remove Chen on allegations family members used their status for personal gain. The opposition alliance garnered 119 of the 148 votes needed to pass the motion. The 87 members of Chen’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party refused to vote.

For the vote to have passed, a significant number of DPP members would have needed to vote for it. Asking DPP members to vote against Chen is one thing, but asking them to vote with the KMT & PFP is a bit like asking them to stop breathing (or, being Taiwanese politicians, stop fighting).

So, this round of The Carnival of Idiots is now over. What happens next?

It’s like deja vu all over again

When the pan-Blues were mulling recalling President Chen, it was the PFP (and James Soong in particular) who were pushing for the recall to go ahead. KMT Chairman Ma Ying-jeou was less enthusiastic, and initially claimed he would only support a recall if Chen Shui-Bian was directly implicated in a corruption scandal. Facing pressure from Soong, Ma changed his mind and threw his support behind a recall.

Now, the exact same thing seems to be happening with a proposed no-confidence vote in Premier Su Tseng-chang. The PFP are pushing for it, while the KMT are less enthusiastic. Will history repeat itself, with the KMT meekly doing the bidding of the PFP? Time will tell.

However, kudos should be given to KMT Whip Pan Wei-kang who is the first politician I’ve seen who’s publicly acknowledged the looming constitutional crisis, and said it should be avoided.

Stressing that the KMT would do its best to pass the presidential recall vote in the Legislative Yuan Tuesday, Pan said it would be untimely to call for a no confidence vote in the legislature to topple the Cabinet before redistricting of electoral constituencies has been completed for the next legislative election.

Meanwhile, the ‘living in cloud cuckoo land’ prize for the most oddly optimistic view of what might happen next goes to the Taipei Times:

A new political atmosphere is likely to emerge after tomorrow’s legislative vote as Chen has proposed to push for political consultations with the opposition and talks with China after the vote on his recall.

Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) on Saturday expressed the hope of organizing a “blue sky, green ground” tea party after the vote on the recall motion, in the hope of creating a more harmonious political environment.

Taiwan’s 6-year political standoff can be solved by a tea party … now why didn’t anyone else think of that?

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