Chiu Yi guilty, No arms for CEC, independent Wang? and more

Chiu Yi (邱毅) has lost his last appeal and has been sentenced for his role in an illegal demonstration in 2004. He has a 14 month sentence. The article says he is now facing the prison sentence and cannot run in the year end election. Horray! He also held a press conference to say A-bian had intervened to make sure he went to jail. DPP legislators have called for his right to leave the country to be restricted if there's any hint he's going to flee.

The KMT and DPP were both kicking around the idea of trading the arms bill for the CEC law. The KMT said they had to respect the PFP and hoped to talk to them more about it; the DPP said they liked the plan, but it was going to come down to the PFP's stance; and the PFP said forget it. For now, there's no chance it'll pass.

The KMT has a lot more people who want to run for the legislature (at least 152) than the DPP has (97 or so at this point?). That's good from the perspective of getting some defections over to the green side. In any case, the KMT says it will deal with each election area at a different time between April and June.

The DPP presidential candidate debate is this weekend.

Wang Jin-pyng refused to rule out running for president as an independent "during the negotiation phase." That seems to be a surprisingly strong statement from him. And he is not registered as a candidate for the 2007 election yet, a strong indication he's not hedging his bets.

The KMT wants Lien Chan, Wang Jin-pyng and Ma Ying-jeou to all show up for their big parade on 3/31. The parade, prompted by the name changes related to Chiang Kai-shek, is sure to be a doozy. The official them for the parade is: "Defend the Republic of China, oppose hatred, oppose corruption, oppose Taiwanese Independence; [We] want work, want clean government, and want peace" (捍衛中華民國，反仇恨、反貪污、反台獨；要工作、要清廉、要和平). They will also hold an event to remember the 30th anniversary of Chiang Kai-shek's death on April 5th.

Another clash in the Legislative Yuan is assured today. The KMT will again try to pass their bill that would assign seats to the Central Election Commission based on the proportional seats the party has in the legislature, and the DPP has vowed to prevent it again. The KMT move is probably meant to prevent any referendum the KMT sees as "scary" from being held at the same time as the legislative or presidential election.

The KMT stressed the lack of faith people have in the legal system and their hope it will be saved. This lack of faith ios a result of recent corruption charges, arrests, prosecutions and rumors. I am glad to be in an era where the guys can actually get charged, arrested and put in jail for these crimes. Of course, not many of them are getting caught. Guys in the business world tell me things are just as corrupt now as under the KMT, but you don't even know if your bribe will be effective (unlike before).

Some lawyers were at a civic conference talking about the KMT ill-gotten assets issue, and lawyer Chen Da-cheng (陳達成) suggested that private citizens who's property was taken should apply to have that property returned. The lawyer cited articles 71 and 72 of civic law, which he said should be basis enough to get the courts to return the property.

President has said he will, at least temporarily, not moderate negotiations over a future DPP presidential candidate. He did not rule out further negotiations at a later date.