The Minister of the Interior yesterday said that it will hold public hearings to discuss whether to allow different political parties to name joint electoral candidates, reacting to the Central Election Commission's draft amendment to the Public Officials Election and Recall Law, which would allow such joint nominations in local elections.
Yu Cheng-hsien (
The minister made the remarks in the course of a series of telephone interviews with reporters yesterday.
The CEC completed Tuesday its draft amendment to the Public Officials Election and Recall Law, which states that parties may name joint candidates in county commissioner and city mayor elections.
The minister was non-committal yesterday about the ministry's own position on the issue but another senior MOI official stressed that the MOI favors two-party politics.
"Developing two-party-politics is our direction, and we don't encourage multi-party-politics' development in Taiwan," said Liu Wen-shih (
It is the MOI which will be responsible for reviewing the CEC's amendment and submitting it to the Executive Yuan,
If the amendment becomes law, the KMT and PFP, which have announced plans to cooperate in the December mayoral elections in Kaohsiung City and Taipei City, would be able to name joint candidates.
"Many academics and politicians have urged us to practice joint nomination in elections for which only one candidate can be elected, such as those for city mayors and commissioners. We believe that it is necessary to allow such practice in order to reflect Taiwan's political reality," said an official from the CEC, who declined to be identified.
Currently, under the Public Officials Election and Recall Law, political parties may nominate one member for each open public office. But advocates of joint nominations say the law is unclear as to whether parties may nominate candidates from other parties and those who are not members of any party.
Reacting to the CEC's amendment, however, DPP legislative whip, Wang Tuoh (
Debates over joint nominations were sparked during the last local commissioners and city mayors elections last December. The KMT, PPF, and the New Party failed in a bid to jointly nominate Wang Chien-hsun for election as Taipei County commissioner when the CEC ruled that such a nomination would be unlawful.
Cross-party cooperation in elections has been a sensitive issue. The "pan-green" TSU and DPP, have tried to ban cooperation between the "pan-blue" KMT and PFP. Following PFP Chairman James Soong's (宋楚瑜) outlining of a proposal to form a united KMT-PFP team for the 2004 presidential campaign early last month, TSU legislators submitted an amendment to the Presidential and Vice Presidential Election and Recall Law to prohibit the two party's possible cooperation.
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