Taiwan's leading opposition party Kuomintang (KMT) on Monday initiated their third effort to pass a motion designed to oust Taiwan leader Chen Shui-bian from power.

 

The "Legislative Yuan," the Taiwan legislature, is expected to hold a vote in response to the motion on November 24.

 

The People First Party (PFP), another major opposition group, has expressed its support for the motion. The KMT and the PFP urged the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) and legislators from the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to back the motion.

 

The TSU, a political party with 12 legislators, announced last Friday it would support the third recall motion when prosecutors indicted Chen's wife, Wu Shu-chen, on charges of graft and forgery of documents in a case involving 14.8 million New Taiwan dollars (US$448,500).

 

However, on Monday the party began to waver, saying they couldn't make decisions before they gauged public opinion.

 

In the last vote 116 legislators voted in favor of the motion. This is well short of the required approval of two-thirds of Taiwan's 220 legislators - 147 votes. For the motion to succeed the opposition requires support from DPP members.

 

Chen has already survived two leadership challenges, in June and October of this year, as the legislators from the ruling DPP have boycotted the vote on both occasions.

 

(Xinhua News Agency November 7, 2006)