Ko asks KMT, DPP speakership hopefuls to brief TPP caucus

Taipei, Jan. 26 (CNA) Taiwan People's Party (TPP) Chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) has called on legislative speakership nominees to brief his party's eight lawmakers on their stance on the TPP's legislative reform proposals made earlier this month.

The TPP is hoping that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and Kuomintang (KMT) nominees will visit the TPP's legislative caucus office and share their views on the TPP's proposals, Ko said after meeting with the TPP caucus at the Legislative Yuan on Friday.

The TPP won eight seats in the 113-seat Legislature in the Jan. 13 legislative elections, and it holds a critical swing vote because neither the DPP, with 51 seats, nor the KMT with 52 seats, won an absolute majority of 57 seats.

Seeking to leverage those seats, TPP lawmakers on Jan. 15 made four proposals that they said were aimed at legislative transparency and oversight and asked the two major parties' legislative speaker candidates to endorse them.

The proposals called for revising rules on penalties for officials who give false testimony at hearings, prohibiting agencies from blocking lawmaker access to documents, preventing lawmakers from acting on bills that constitute a conflict of interest, and requiring the legislative speaker to detail his use of a special stipend.

The TPP appeal had publicly been ignored by the DPP and KMT until Wednesday, when the KMT's speaker candidate Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), its 2020 presidential candidate, wrote on Facebook that many suggestions about reforming the Legislature had been made, and listed the TPP's proposals without crediting the party.

"These proposals are sensible and should be taken seriously," Han wrote.

He said he welcomed and would support bills aimed at pushing reforms and providing effective checks and balances of the ruling party.

That apparently was not enough for Ko. On Friday, he acknowledged criticism the speaker cannot on their own get reforms through the Legislature, but he said the speaker candidates should at least make their stances on the issues clear in front of the TPP caucus.

In response, KMT Secretary-General Justin Huang (黃健庭) said the KMT caucus would need to assess the situation before it decided whether to answer Ko's call, having heard that the TPP caucus is mulling different strategies for the speakership election.

The KMT may be proceeding cautiously after a failed attempt in November to create a unified KMT-TPP presidential ticket to dislodge the DPP from power, which the KMT blamed on Ko.

Legislative Speaker You Si-kun (游錫堃), the DPP's expected speaker candidate, said he would visit any caucus that invited him to elaborate on his ideas and use such opportunities to canvass support.

(By Sean Lin, Liu Chien-pang, and Fan Cheng-hsiang) enditem/ls