Taipei, Sept. 28 (CNA) Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) spoke briefly at the Legislative Yuan on Tuesday to conclude his first policy address in the body’s new session amid a boycott by the opposition Kuomintang (KMT) over the ruling administration’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Accompanied by other Cabinet officials, Su arrived at the Legislature shortly before the meeting began at 9 a.m., while several KMT legislators were already occupying seats reserved for officials.
KMT members shouted slogans demanding that Su apologize for the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government’s COVID-19 policy in an attempt to stop him from reporting to lawmakers.
A number of DPP legislators then surrounded the speaker’s seat and nearby areas, and pushing and shoving between rival lawmakers ensued.
With the help of DPP lawmakers, Su was able to step up to the podium and make a policy report that lasted less than two minutes to fulfill his duty as stipulated in the country’s Constitution.
After his remarks, Su fielded questions, as required by law. The session was interrupted, however, after the first legislator who asked questions, Chiu Hsien-chih (邱顯智) of the opposition New Power Party, complained about KMT lawmakers being too loud in their protest.
Deputy Legislative Speaker Tsai Chi-chang (蔡其昌), the convener of the session, later decided to temporarily suspend the session and hold a cross-party negotiation to decide when it would continue.
The negotiation was ongoing as of noon.
Su was supposed to make his first policy address on Sept. 24 in the new Legislative session that began on Sept. 17, but was forced to postpone that report to Tuesday due to the KMT boycott.
Article 3, Section 1 of the Additional Articles of the Constitution of the Republic of China stipulates that the country’s premier has the duty to present a policy report from his or her administration to the Legislative Yuan and answer lawmaker questions.
The KMT boycott is a protest over the DPP government’s policy changes made in mid-April that allowed cabin crew members of national airlines to only quarantine for three days after flying back to Taiwan, and its refusal to address the consequences of those changes.
Shortly after the three-day quarantine policy was introduced, two China Airline pilots who had just returned to Taiwan tested positive for the virus on April 20. Infections involving airline employees and their families then surged.
The airline cluster soon expanded in late April to include employees of the Novotel Taipei Taoyuan International Airport hotel, which is owned by the airline and had served as a quarantine hotel for its crews.
Beginning on May 11, domestic infections emerged in northern Taiwan and especially in Wanhua District of Taipei, which eventually led to more than 10,000 COVID-19 cases and 800 deaths across the country in two months.
Many, including the opposition party, have linked those cases to the smaller China Airlines and Novotel cluster infection in late April.
Health Minister Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) even seemed to confirm the link on May 13 before the major surge began, saying that the genetic sequence of the virus in some China Airlines and Novotel cases were identical to a Luzhou case and by extension an early Wanhua case.
At the time, however, the government was not able to identify a chain of transmission from one person to another.
KMT lawmakers repeated the charge again Tuesday, and criticized the DPP government’s lack of remorse for its COVID-19 missteps.
They demanded that Su apologize, both verbally at the Legislature and in the Cabinet’s report.
Su previously apologized over the loss of 800 lives in Taiwan due to the pandemic, but the government now insists that the China Airlines/Novotel cluster and the surge were unrelated. It has failed to provide a formal explanation of how the mid-May infections originated.
