/ 25 April 2008

Nose-picking lawmaker to shout his last good-bye

Taiwan’s Cabinet will soon lose one of its more colourful members who was notorious for sleeping in Parliament, shouting at legislators, picking his nose in public and shoving a journalist.

Tu Cheng-sheng, Education Minister since 2004, will step down next month along with current President Chen Shui-bian.

”According to Eastern tradition and Taiwan culture, you could say that these actions were hard to accept,” said Liu Chin-hsu, secretary-general of the National Teachers’ Association.

The Cabinet of President-elect Ma Ying-jeou is shaping up as a group of technocrats rather than political firebrands.

Tu (63) a former National Palace Museum director, magazine editor and visiting Harvard University scholar, was filmed sleeping at an October 2007 Parliament meeting. – Reuters