UNIFIED POSITIONS:Democratic Progressive Party Chairperson Tsai Ing-Wen laid out ambitious goals for a two-day gathering starting today in Greater Taichung
By Chris Wang / Staff reporter
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) opens a two-day meeting today in Greater Taichung to discuss policies and a unified position on a number of agendas, in particular on several cross-strait issues, for the upcoming extra legislative session.
Convened by DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), the “enlarged policy meeting” is to bring together DPP legislators, party officials as well as mayors, and commissioners of DPP-governed administrative zones or their deputies.
On the agenda are the party’s policies on the cross-strait service trade agreement, which is awaiting legislative screening, a monitoring mechanism for cross-strait agreements in the Legislative Yuan and the free economic pilot zones (FEPZs), a project targeting primarily Chinese investments.
The attendees are also expected to discuss the upcoming review of Control Yuan and Examination Yuan members in the legislature’s extra session, which is to begin on Friday.
The meeting is to be an enlarged version of the party’s weekly policy coordination meeting, organized to coordinate opinions and positions from the DPP legislative caucus and party headquarters, according to DPP spokesperson Hsu Chia-ching (徐佳青).
The DPP under the leadership of former chairman Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) had been often described as “out of synch” over the past two years as party headquarters and the caucus sometimes had different views and plans for issues.
DPP spokesperson Huang Di-ying (黃帝穎) said more than 80 percent of the 40 DPP lawmakers are expected to attend the meeting, adding that Yilan County Commissioner Lin Tsung-hsien (林聰賢) would attend, with Greater Tainan and Greater Kaohsiung sending deputy mayors.
The expanded meeting, which Tsai described as a “consensus-building boot camp,” was on Tsai’s list of priorities unveiled on Thursday.
Other than the camp, Tsai —who assumed the party helm on May 28 and said that there would be “no honeymoon period” for her second stint as party chair — listed a citizen economics conference and a citizen constitution conference as important because “Taiwan cannot wait.”
Winning the seven-in-one election in November is the party’s most important short-term goal, which is why a special committee on the elections has been established, Tsai said.