As expected, a boycott by the ruling Democratic Progressive Party ensured lawmakers of the main opposition Kuomintang and its People First Party (PFP) ally yesterday failed to muster the two-thirds majority needed to pass a motion calling for an island-wide referendum to decide whether the embattled leader should be ousted.

A total of 118 lawmakers, including seven independents, voted in favour of the motion. But the number fell short of the 146 needed for the proposal to pass through the 218-seat legislature, Speaker Wang Jin-pyng announced.

All 83 DPP lawmakers stayed away from the vote, while 12 members of the pro-independence Taiwan Solidarity Union cast invalid ballots.

The legislature originally comprised 220 seats, but the number was reduced after two DPP lawmakers resigned in disappointment at the party's failure to punish Mr Chen when his wife was charged with corruption.

On November 3, prosecutors indicted Wu Shu-chen on charges of corruption and document forgery for allegedly pocketing NT$14.8 million (HK$3.5 million) in the past four years by using receipts provided by others to account for the spending of state funds.

Prosecutors said they had enough evidence to level the same charges against Mr Chen, but did not do so because of his presidential immunity.

The indictment spurred the opposition to launch a third recall motion to try to unseat Mr Chen, who had survived two previous motions since June.

During a reception for Therese Shaheen - former chairwoman of the American Institute in Taiwan, the US' de facto embassy on the island - a jubilant Mr Chen described the opposition's third failed bid as 'part of the democratic development' in Taiwan. Ms Shaheen, who is on a brief private visit, said she firmly believed in the Taiwanese people's pursuit of freedom and democracy.

The former US envoy, who is a friend of Mr Chen, recently attracted controversy by writing an article that described supporters of the anti-corruption and anti-Chen campaigns as 'mobs', drawing objections from the protesters.

Claiming the president was corrupt, the protesters, led by former DPP chairman Shih Ming-teh, staged a series of rallies between September and October to demand Mr Chen resign over a string of scandals linked to him, his family and aides. Two of the marches each attracted more than half a million demonstrators.

Mr Chen has denied any wrongdoing, saying both he and his wife are clean.

Prosecutors have alleged that the president used state funds to buy a diamond ring for his wife, while his children used public coffers for their own entertainment.

Mr Chen's only son, Chen Chih-chung, came under media scrutiny yesterday after he and his pregnant wife, Huang Jui-chin, were seen leaving their upmarket Manhattan apartment for a Thanksgiving dinner at a high-class French restaurant.

Local cable news channels showed him in a smart black suit and his wife in a trendy fur outfit while taking a limousine to the restaurant, where Thanksgiving dinner cost at least NT$5,000 per person. The reports said the asking rent for the apartment where the couple lived was at least NT$250,000 a month, prompting angry opposition supporters on televised political talk shows to question how the jobless couple could afford such a life while many people in Taiwan committed suicide over financial problems.

The Presidential Office declined to comment on the reports.