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進入《TAIPEI TIMES 焦點》 KMT insincere, unclear on reform: DPP
LEGISLATIVE OVERHAUL: The DPP supports introducing mixed-member proportional representation, while lowering the threshold for seats from 5% of the total vote to 3%
By Loa Iok-sin / Staff reporter
Democratic Progressive Party （DPP） Legislator Lee Chun-yi （李俊俋）, one of the conveners of the legislature’s Constitutional Reform Committee, yesterday accused the Chinese Nationalist Party （KMT） of being insincere about amending the Constitution, saying its proposals are unclear and irresponsible.
“The DPP has had several meetings on constitutional reform and have confirmed our fundamental principles, yet the KMT still seems unclear about what it wants to accomplish with constitutional reform and its proposal to impose a parliamentary system is irresponsible,” Lee said yesterday after attending a meeting at DPP headquarters on constitutional reform presided over by DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen （蔡英文）.
Lee said that while the KMT supports changing the semi-presidential system to a parliamentary system, it opposes increasing the number of seats in the legislature.
“If more than 30 lawmakers are to become ministers in the Cabinet, we wouldn’t have a sufficient number of legislators,” Lee said.
“So far, the KMT has only proposed granting the legislature the power to vote on the appointment of a premier, but has not yet proposed any details about the design of the parliamentary system,” Lee said.
“It’s quite irresponsible and it makes people question whether they are sincere about constitutional reform,” he added.
He said the KMT should take into consideration whether the public is ready to accept having a president without any actual power or the suspension of presidential elections once a parliamentary system is in place.
During the DPP’s meeting on constitutional reform, the party finalized its proposals for the first phase of constitutional reform, including lowering the voting age from 20 to 18, adding clauses on human rights protection to the Constitution, and abolishing the Control Yuan and the Examination Yuan, a press statement said.
In addition, the DPP also supports lowering the age limit for becoming a legislative or council candidate from 23 to 20.
The press statement said that to increase diversity in the legislature, the DPP also supports introducing mixed-member proportional representation — meaning that the total number of seats a party gains would be decided on the percentage of votes it receive in an election — while lowering the threshold for parties to have seats in the legislature from 5 percent of the votes to 3 percent, to enable smaller parties to be represented in the legislature.
“Some participants in the meeting were skeptical about mixed-member proportional representation, because they worry that there would be too many smaller parties in the legislature, but we think it’s more important to increase diversity in representation,” Lee said.
As the legislature is the only institution that can initiate constitutional reform, the DPP is also proposing to allow the public to initiate constitutional amendments through petitions.
新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES
