Rather than being a remarkable milestone in the development of the nation's democracy, President Chen Shui-bian's (
The pan-green camp yesterday hailed the decision by Chen to hold a referendum before the presidential election on March 20 next year, saying the referendum would be a big leap forward for the nation's democracy as the public would be granted the right to exercise their free will on public-policy issues.
Cheng Wen-tsan (
"The SARS storm prompted the mainstream public opinion to think that it is necessary to properly express their will, including participating in the World Health Organization, despite possible opposition from the US or mainland China," Cheng said.
Editor-in-chief of Contemporary Monthly Chin Heng-wei (
"The decision to hold referendums is not only an answer to Lin, but also to the public desire to hold plebiscites and to resolve the inefficient operations of the legislature," Chin said.
"There is a strong sentiment that the public can no longer endure the stagnation in legislative operations and they will try to resort to a referendum law as a solution," he said.
"I personally give a thumbs-up to the DPP's strategy in directing the referendum issue, including on Taiwan's WHO entry bid and the the nuclear power plant," Chin said.
Chiu Hei-yuan (
"In the beginning of the DPP administration, they said the country's poor economy was the result of the sluggish global economic climate, but now they say it is because the opposition parties are maliciously boycotting its economic and financial proposals. The DPP can no longer stick to these old and cliched excuses," Chiu said.
"Pushing the referendum bid might be a diversion from its administrative failures. Meanwhile it gives the Chen administration the power to resort directly to the people to offset its frustration in pushing reforms," Chiu said.
"Using referendums to decide public policy is a new tactic the DPP has created to help press its proposed policies, including cutting the number of legislative seats in half," Chiu said.
The TSU, a die-hard supporter of referendums, yesterday said the DPP's move brought it one step closer to realizing its goal of legalizing referendums.
The party has been advocating holding referendums concerning independence and sovereignty issues. The DPP, though a long-term supporter of referendums, backed away from pressing for them after it failed to stop construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in 2001.
TSU Policy Center Director Lee Shang-ren (李先仁) said, "We are more than happy that the DPP has decided to do it. The deeper meaning of this move is that the referendum draft bill is very likely to be passed in the next legislative session, providing a legal basis for the government to conduct referendums."
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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