In England, the ‘Silly Season’ is when Parliament is in recess, and so the newspapers need to look for silly stories to replace the normal discussion of political issues. In Taiwan, it starts when the Legislative session starts – because the legislators specialise in silly behaviour.

Thus, it was no real surprise that the first day of the latest session was punctuated by scuffles and water fights. The main item on the agenda, a policy report by Premier Frank Hsieh, didn’t happen because opposition legislators blocked the podium, and one enterprising individual even managed to rip up his speech.

One female KMT lawmaker splashed tea on the sleeves of Foreign Minister Mark Chen’s (陳唐山) suit, as scuffles broke out through the morning.

Unhappy that KMT lawmakers blocked the podium where the premier was scheduled to speak, DPP lawmakers decided to occupy the seat of the legislative speaker and rip up the KMT’s placards in one of the day’s more chaotic episodes.

The KMT lawmakers said they prevented the premier from speaking to draw attention to questionable measures and suspicions of impropriety emerging from recent controversies.

Those of you who despair of the behaviour of their democratically elected representatives will be relieved to know that most of them will be out of a job in under 3 years time when the number of legislators is halved (3 cheers for constitutional reform!).

In the meantime, I’m guessing the KMT will continue to come out on top in these fights: after all, when you’ve got an Olympic Taekwondo medal winner (Huang Chih-hsiung (黃志雄) – Silver medal in Athens) in your team, the odds are stacked in your favour. (There’s plenty more political analysis over at Wandering to Tamshui)

Update: I don’t know quite how it happened, but a BBC article on G.W. Bush’s bathroom habits linked to this article. I guess anyone interested in presidential bowel movements would probably quite enjoy Taiwanese politics, so feel free to stick around if that’s where you’ve come from!