The Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) efforts to amend the Organic Law of the Central Election Commission (CEC) (中央選舉委員會組織) shows that Premier Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄) is correct in his view that "the two-step voting format that pan-blue cities and counties propose using for the Jan. 12 legislative elections" is illegal.
It seems the KMT first tried to ignore the law and publicly claimed is was law-abiding in its electoral schemes. But when faced with threats of enforcement of the law, it switched tactics and now seeks to change the law.
Though the KMT will not admit it, this tactical change underscores its agreement with the fact that the law gives the CEC control over local election commissions. So the only way for it to get its way is to force a change in the makeup of the CEC.
Though it claims that the CEC is biased, the change it seeks indicates its preference for a biased CEC, as long as it is in the pan-blue camp's advantage. It provides further evidence that its own commissioners would not be neutral.
The behavior of the KMT leadership over voting procedures truly shows their antipathy toward democracy. Those in the KMT who genuinely support democracy must put pressure on the party elite to accept the CEC ruling.
But they haven't done so. What are they afraid of?
Anyone who supports democracy should embrace the principle that every citizen's opinion matters and has equal dignity. He or she would say: "If my own party's policy position or candidate is voted against, so be it. The people have spoken. I will abide by the results and work to persuade people in the next election."
One who embraces democracy does not seek to buy or manipulate votes, or manipulate laws to make it easier to commit electoral fraud.
It should be obvious that a one-step voting procedure will guard against fraud and help preserve a secret ballot. If the KMT were serious about its desire for a referendum, it would not matter if the referendum were given out at the same time as the election ballots.
Instead, its opposition has unveiled the fact that it couldn't care less about its referendum and only proposed it to sabotage the efforts of the Democratic Progressive Party.
In a democracy, the end does not justify the means. Rather, it is appropriate means that give legitimacy to the ends.
Joel Linton
Taipei
In a Facebook post on Wednesday last week, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Hsu Chiao-hsin (徐巧芯) wrote: “The KMT must fall for Taiwan to improve.’ Allow me to ask the question again: Is this really true?” It matters not how many times Hsu asks the question, my answer will always be the same: “Yes, the KMT must be toppled for Taiwan to improve.” In the lengthy Facebook post, titled “What were those born in the 1980s guilty of?” Hsu harked back to the idealistic aspirations of the 2014 Sunflower movement before heaping opprobrium on the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP)
The scuffle between Chinese embassy staffers in Fiji and a Taiwanese diplomat at a Republic of China (ROC) Double Ten National Day celebration has turned into a public relations opportunity for the government, Beijing and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). Although the incident occurred on Oct. 8, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) downplayed it, only for the story to be picked up by the foreign media, forcing the ministry to respond. The public and opposition parties asked why the government had failed to remonstrate more strongly in the first instance. It is still unclear whether the ministry missed a trick
US President Donald Trump and his Democratic rival, former US vice president Joe Biden, are holding their final debate tonight. In their foreign policy debate, China is sure to be a major issue of contention for the two candidates. Here are several questions the moderator should pose to the candidates: For both: In the first televised US presidential debates in 1960, then-Democratic candidate John F. Kennedy and his Republican counterpart, Richard Nixon, were asked whether the US should intervene if communist China attacked Taiwan’s outlying islands of Kinmen and Matsu. Kennedy said no, unless the main island of Taiwan was also attacked.
For most of us, the colorful, otherworldly marinescapes of coral reefs are as remote as the alien landscapes of the moon. We rarely, if ever, experience these underwater wonderlands for ourselves — we are, after all, air-breathing, terrestrial creatures mostly cocooned in cities. It is easy not to notice the perilous state they are in: We have lost 50 percent of coral reefs in the past 20 years and more than 90 percent are expected to die by 2050, a presentation at the Ocean Sciences Meeting in San Diego, California, earlier this year showed. As the oceans heat further and
RSS