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Chen calls for referendum negotiations

President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) yesterday called for negotiations with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) over the two referendums on the nation's application for UN membership.

In an interview with the Japanese daily Asahi Shimbun, Chen said he had asked Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) to pass on his sentiments on the issue to KMT Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄).

"I wonder if it is possible to hold negotiations convened by the president to deal with the combination of the referendums and the presidential election, which is a very important, sensitive, thorny and disputed issue, before election day," Chen said.

The government has decided to hold a Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)-sponsored referendum asking if voters support seeking a UN seat using the name "Taiwan" and a KMT initiated referendum on the country rejoining the world body under the "Republic of China (ROC)" or any other "practical titles" in tandem with the March 22 presidential election.

Appeals to separate the poll and the referendums have been made recently, mainly by the Taiwan Solidarity Union, which is worried that the referendums would fail, partly because of the high threshold set for referendums in the Referendum Law (公民投票法) and partly because of a boycott the KMT is likely to stage.

"It's not necessary to hold the referendums together with the national election as long as we make the threshold a simple majority of voters casting ballots, removing the 50 percent threshold. Referendums can be held at any time," Chen told the paper.

In other developments, lawmakers from the DPP and the KMT failed to reach a consensus yesterday on a legislative resolution on the nation's UN bid at a cross-party meeting.

The KMT caucus proposed a resolution draft that said the legislature should urge the government to speed up efforts to get "our country" into the UN and other international organizations, setting aside the controversial issue of which name to use to represent the country.

"We reserved approval of the draft as it failed to reflect equality between Taiwan and China. We also worried that the KMT will launch a boycott of the two referendums and use the resolution as a substitute for the referendums," DPP caucus whip William Lai (賴清德) said.

The DPP caucus told a press conference yesterday that they would not support the proposal until the KMT shows it some respect.

"A referendum for `returning' or `participating in' the UN is our policy. They need to show respect by adding this sentence to the agreement in return for our support," DPP caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) said.

He said that the referendum would be held along with the presidential election and that the KMT should not confuse the public by proposing the agreement now, when there are only two weeks to election day.

"The referendum is the referendum and the agreement is the agreement. They are two different issues," Ker said.

Ker said the timing of the proposal showed that the KMT was merely trying to confuse the public. He also said there was no main body to the text.

"Up to now, there is only an introduction to the agreement. How do they expect us to sit down, negotiate and support the proposal when there is nothing to discuss?" Ker said.

He said that the KMT had initially planned to propose the agreement before the Lunar New Year but had postponed it until now for reasons unknown.

"For me, the agreement is only a document to tell the world what the legislature's attitude toward the UN issue is. It will never be able to replace the referendum because the result of the referendum will be the message from the Taiwanese people to the world. They mean different things," Ker said.

KMT caucus whip Lin Yi-shih (林益世) condemned the DPP for refusing to support the draft resolution.

Joining the UN was a "non-issue" for the DPP, Lin said.

ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY JIMMY CHUANG
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