So let’s see. Has anything much happened this week in Taiwan politics?

The legislature controversially passed the Cross Straits Service Trade Agreement, perhaps the most important issue to come before the legislature in the six years of Ma’s presidency, through committee by extremely questionable means. Ma had explicitly ordered his party to pass the damn thing, and he didn’t care how. The committee convener obliged by sneaking off to corner and whispering his decision into a microphone inside his jacket. Student groups rushed the Legislative Yuan, expelled police, set up in the main chamber, repelled several attempts to dislodge them the first night, settled in for the long haul, and electrified the whole society. The court ruled that Speaker Wang should retain his KMT membership, thus ensuring he will continue as speaker of the Legislative Yuan. Ma’s attempted purge of Wang was the cause of last year’s September Strife. A different court convicted the Special Prosecutor of illegally leaking information to President Ma. The information in question was precisely the evidence used to justify Ma’s attempt to purge Wang. The Council of Grand Justices ruled that the Assembly and Parade Act is unconstitutional. This is a ruling that opposition parties have been seeking for years. The tenth anniversary of the assassination attempt on President Chen on the eve of the 2004 presidential election was this week. Ma tried to convent the heads of the five branches of government (Executive, Legislative, Judicial, Control, and Examination) to discuss solutions to resolve the disorder in the legislature. Speaker Wang refused to attend.

Other than that, nothing much happened this week. (Unless I’ve forgotten something else!)

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