The Legislative Yuan will hold a registered vote on the Supervisory Yuan personnel consent case today. Over the unanimous objections of the Kuomintang League and the Popular Party League, the 27 nominees, including Supervisory Director Chen Yongxing, did not receive more than one-half of the votes of all legislators and were not allowed to be members of the Supervisory Committee according to law. Among them, there were three invalid votes, namely, DPP legislator Wu Lihua voted for Gao Tianhui Eleng Tjaljimaraw, Kuomintang legislator Lin Siming voted for Peng Shaojin, and independent legislator Zheng Tiancai voted for Iban Nokan.
Wu Lihua explained that Gao Tianhui was her aunt, and because they were related, she chose legal "moral avoidance" and cast an invalid vote. This was reported and approved. Lin Siming recently affirmed Peng Shaojin's professionalism and experience. Peng was also his senior at Hsinchu Middle School and Soochow University. However, Peng's political party color is quite clear, and the supervisory committee must be detached and independent.
Xu Yuzhen, secretary-general of the Kuomintang League, said that this was not opposition for the sake of opposition. The voting results reflected the strong dissatisfaction of society with the loss of the functions of the Supervisory Yuan. The people are fed up with spending huge sums of money every year without effective supervision.
Xu Yuzhen pointed out that in recent years, people have seen too many things that should be investigated but not supervised, and things that should be supervised are not supervised. In the face of major controversies, the Supervisory Yuan is often slow to respond, and even makes the outside world question that the supervision standards vary from person to person. When the supervisory power loses its teeth, people will naturally ask: Why does the state still spend huge sums of money to support an agency that cannot perform its constitutional supervision function?
Xu Yuzhen said that the Kuomintang group has carefully scrutinized the nominees for the Supervisory Committee this time. In addition to some candidates having close ties with the Green Camp, more importantly, they cannot see the determination and performance that is enough to convince the people that they can transcend the party, be independent, and reinvigorate the supervisory power. The Supervisory Committee is not a nomination by the president and must be accepted, let alone a position of political arrangement. Therefore, the Kuomintang group decided not to support it.
Xu Yuzhen emphasized that today’s voting results should be taken seriously by the nominees. President Lai should re-examine the nomination method and selection conditions, and propose candidates who can truly gain the trust of society and be able to independently supervise the government, instead of placing all the responsibility for failure to obtain approval on Congress. The personnel of the Control Yuan cannot be used as political favors, nor can the opposition parties be required to turn a blind eye to doubts about their suitability in order to fill vacancies.
Xu Yuzhen believes that today’s voting results should prompt the government and the opposition to rethink: What kind of supervisory system do the people really need? How can supervisory power be exercised so that it can truly check and balance power and protect the people, instead of becoming an expensive but senseless political decoration? This is the system reform issue that Congress must face seriously next.
