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Opposition aims to
impeach Ma
NO SUBSTANCE: The DPP-TSU initiative to remove
Ma from power in the twilight of his first term has been ridiculed by the KMT as
having ‘little or no meaning’
By Shih Hsiu-chuan / Staff reporter, with CNA
Democratic Progressive Party and
Taiwan Solidarity Union legislators announce a motion to impeach President Ma
Ying-jeou in Taipei yesterday.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
Pan-green parties yesterday announced they
had launched an effort to impeach President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) over what they
claim are policies that are detrimental to the country’s welfare, sparking
accusations of troublemaking from the pan-blue camp.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus convener Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘)
announced that the DPP and the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) had initiated the
process against Ma, which will unfold just days before his first term comes to a
close and he is inaugurated for a second term.
The DPP and the TSU caucuses told a press conference at the legislature that the
impeachment motion would be processed by the legislature’s Procedure Committee
today, the last chance for the legislature to review the impeachment before Ma’s
first term ends on Saturday.
According to Article 2 of the Constitution, impeachment of the president or vice
president must be proposed by one-fourth of all legislators and raised in the
legislative session after being ratified by two-thirds of legislators, after
which the proposal has to be voted on by everyone eligible to vote in “the
liberated area of the Republic of China [ROC].”
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) holds 64 seats in the legislature, against
the DPP’s 40 and three each for the People First Party (PFP) and the TSU, with
the remaining seats held by independents.
The impeachment would be valid if half of the total eligible population voted in
its favor.
The current high threshold for impeaching a president serves as a safety net for
presidents with consecutive terms in office and is detrimental to the country’s
democratic process, Ker said.
“Since his election in 2008, Ma’s popularity has fallen to 15 percent and we
wish to warn Ma that his first term of presidency will end with an impeachment,”
Ker said, adding that the motion also serves to let history show the will of the
people in current times and leave a record of the attempted -impeachment in the
legislature.
“The policies of the Ma administration are completely against the public’s will
and the impeachment effort against Ma is the right thing to do,” TSU
spokesperson Hsu Chung-hsin (許忠信) said, adding that the TSU caucus would move to
amend the Presidential and Vice Presidential Election and Recall Act
(總統副總統選舉罷免法) and make the “unable to be impeached until one full year in office”
clause inapplicable to a president who has won a second term.
Article 70 of the act states that presidents cannot be impeached within a year
after they are sworn in. However, it does not say whether the rule applies to a
president’s second term.
The amendment is to prevent presidents who have been elected for a second term
from raising prices immediately after being elected and ruining the economy, Hsu
said, adding that if the impeachment is not successful, the TSU would initiate
another impeachment motion after the first year of Ma’s second term.
Reacting to the announcement, KMT legislators said the initiative to impeach Ma
was nothing but “political in-fighting.”
The pan-blue PFP also opposed the impeachment motion, further reducing the
already slim chances of the proposal passing the legislature.
KMT Legislator Wu Yu-sheng (吳育昇) said he regretted the DPP and the TSU were
willing to “deliberately stir up trouble” with only a few days of Ma’s first
term left.
“It doesn’t make any sense to impeach Ma at this time,” KMT caucus whip Lin
Hung-chih (林鴻池) said. “It’s merely an act of political -manipulation that cannot
contribute anything to society. It’s farcical.”
PFP caucus whip Thomas Lee (李桐豪) said PFP lawmakers did not put their names to
the initiative, but would not block it from being placed on the legislative
agenda.
The impeachment “has little or no substantial meaning” because Ma is approaching
the end of his term of office, but the DPP and the TSU “have the right to have
it reviewed at plenary session as long as they have adequate signatures to
sustain the motion,” Lee said.
Translation by Jake Chung, Staff Writer
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