Opposition parties cried foul yesterday after only five of 21 review committee members of a bid to hold a referendum on the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) showed up for a meeting, forcing a cancellation of a preliminary screening.
Despite the setback, the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU), which initiated the bid, said it hoped things would be different on Aug. 12, when the committee is due to hear the proposal again.
The timing of the hearing was announced by the Central Election Commission (CEC) through the Central News Agency (CNA) yesterday.
It was the third time a similar question had been put to a vote by the review committee, the previous attempts being rejected.
The TSU told reporters that a public vote would reflect many of the concerns that the public had on the trade pact signed with China last month, and in a statement said that the review committee should “avoid letting the Taiwanese people down once again.”
However, it also acknowledged that the party was not optimistic, saying that it believed the review committee was politicizing the issue to prevent the ECFA from becoming a focus during the year-end special municipality elections.
The party has already sued the 12 committee members who voted against its earlier referendum proposal, saying that their verdict was illegal as they overstepped their authority and violated the Referendum Act (公民投票法).
Both times the committee voted against the TSU and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) sponsored proposals, saying there was a contradiction between the referendum content and the question.
This has led to criticism from the opposition parties, alleging that the review committee was following orders from either the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) or the government, expressly preventing the ECFA question from being put to a public vote.
The accusations were repeated by DPP lawmakers yesterday.
“It shows just how politicized this committee has become,” DPP Legislator Yeh Yi-jin (葉宜津) said. “Otherwise, how is it believable that 16 people all suddenly had somewhere else to go?”
CEC Secretary-General Teng Tien-yu (鄧天祐) told CNA that of the 21, seven were abroad and the others were unable to attend because of unspecified reasons.
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