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ARMS PURCHASE BILL UNLIKELY TO CLEAR LEGISLATURE IN SHORT TERM

ROC Central News Agency

2006-01-14 11:45:39
(repeat)

    Taipei, Jan. 13 (CNA) The disputed arms procurement bill is not likely to be passed by the opposition-controlled Legislative Yuan in the near term, according to political observers.

    Analysts said they see no signs that the bill would clear the legislature any time soon, although the opposition "pan-blue alliance" of the Kuomintang (KMT) and the People First Party (PFP) maintains only a slight majority over the "pan-green camp" of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Taiwan Solidarity Union.

    At the legislature's final budget screening session Thursday, the "pan-blue alliance" engineered a vote to axed all of the funds in the Ministry of National Defense's (MND's) 2006 budget plan related to the long-stalled U.S. arms procurement package. The Sixth Legislative Yuan's second legislative session ended Friday and the next session will open in February.

    With its slim majority in the legislature's Procedure Committee, the "pan-blue alliance" had also blocked the arms package from being put onto the legislative agenda for full-house deliberation for more than 40 times since mid-2004.

    Political analysts predicted that disputes centering on the arms procurement bill will continue into the next legislative secession despite the fact that the MND has trimmed the planned budget for the purchase of eight diesel-electric submarine, six Patriot PAC III anti-missile batteries and 12 P-3C anti submarine airplanes from the United States substantially.

    The MND has also agreed to only have the submarines financed by a special budget bill while incorporating the funds needed for the two other items into its regular annual budget.

    Given the protracted and even increasingly hostile standoff between the "pan-blue" and "pan-green" camps, political observers said the fate of the arms procurement bill will remain uncertain when the next legislative session opens next month.

(By Flor Wang)

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