The Ministry of the Interior issued another warning yesterday that the Taipei City Government must reverse its decision to postpone its borough-warden elections. The warning comes after the city government argued that the MOI's first warning regarding the issue was not clear enough.
"The city government's decision to postpone the election for 6 months to a year is obviously flawed and violates the Law on Local Government Systems. Please reverse the decision immediately and follow the related regulations," the MOI document states.
The Taipei City Council passed the Autonomous Regulation Governing Taipei City Borough Organization on April 3. The legislation postponed the elections, which were originally scheduled to be held on June 8, until a redrawing of Taipei's borough boundaries has been completed.
The MOI has opposed the decision, saying that the city government's reason for the postponement is inappropriate.
The city government, however, has argued that a local government has the inherent right to change the date of local elections.
The Election and Recall Law (
The MOI explained that "apart from disasters, only if two elections are scheduled within a short time of each other can the dates be changed so that they are held on the same day."
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 the city government's management of the elections.
Responding to the updated warning, the Taipei City government said that they would still insist on upholding the postponement decision. "The document doesn't clearly tell us what to do, which shows that the MOI knows it has no right to tell us what to do," said Lin Cheng-hsiu (林正修), director of the city's Bureau of Civil Affairs.
"In documents issued by the MOI in 1988, the ministry said that local governments have the right to define what the `special incidents' are, I don't understand why it changed its attitude now," Lin said.
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