The Central Election Commission (CEC) yesterday said that it would not instruct the Taipei City Gov-ernment to reverse its postponement for one year of borough-warden elections due in June this year unless instructed to do so by the Executive Yuan.
The comment was made shortly before the Ministry of the Interior yesterday officially issued an order to the city government to reverse its decision.
Ball in Cabinet's court
"If the Cabinet overrules the city government's decision over the postponement, we will hold the elections at the scheduled time in accordance with related regulations," said Huang Shih-cheng (
Huang was responding to a petition submitted to the CEC by DPP candidate for the Taipei City Council Peng Tien-hao's (彭天豪). Peng was seeking a CEC order to Taipei City to hold the borough warden elections at the scheduled time.
Responding to the ministry's order, Lin Cheng-hsiu (林正修), director of the city's Bureau of Civil Affairs, said that the city government would review the ministry's documents, re-evaluate the issue, and respond to the ministry within a week.
The Cabinet may at any time, however, issue its own order to the city government, but has said that it will only do so on the advice of the ministry. The Cabinet's official spokesmen told the Taipei Times yesterday that it would not make any decision until it has received a copy of the ministry's order to the city government.
The Taipei City Council passed the Autonomous Regulation Gov-erning the Taipei City Borough Organization on April 3. The legislation calls for a postponement of the elections -- originally scheduled to be held on June 8 -- until a redrawing of Taipei's borough boundaries is completed.
The Ministry of the Interior, many Taipei City councilors and aspiring warden candidates, oppose the move and have accused the city government of abuse of power over the issue. The city government, however, has argued that changing the date of local elections is an inherent right of local governments.
Under the Law on Local Gov-ernment Systems, local governments are responsible for holding borough-warden elections, but the central government is required to monitor their conduct. According to Article 75 of the law, when the exercise of local autonomy by a local government violates the regulations or the Constitution, the supervising department of the central government has the right to report the case to the Cabinet, which can overrule the local government.
The letter of the law
Liu Wen-shih (劉文仕), director of the ministry's civil affairs department, emphasized that the ministry's position was "only about following the regulations, not simply about obstructing the city government.
"Many local governments have sought postponements for borough-warden elections for the same reason, but we rejected their requests. These local governments successfully implemented their local administrative regulations without postponing their elections. Why can't the Taipei City Government do the same?" Liu asked.
"There are limits to local governments' autonomy. We would hope that the Taipei City Government would understand those limits and not step beyond them," Liu added.
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