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Pan-blue plebiscite draft a `bird cage,' government says

A draft referendum law preventing government agencies from initiating referendums was jointly introduced by opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and People First Party (PFP) lawmakers yesterday.

Further restrictions in the draft would prevent referendums from being held in tandem with presidential elections, as well as exclude questions relating to national sovereignty and constitutional amendment.

While the opposition camp's draft excludes from public consideration such issues as the national title, flag and territory, the DPP's draft allows the public to decide on such matters if Taiwan is threatened by a foreign power.

Other topics banned from public consideration in the opposition's draft include diplomacy, military affairs, the budget, taxation, salaries, social welfare and ethnic affairs.

Mocking the numerous limitations set down by the opposition camp's draft, Cabinet Spokesman Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday likened the bill to a "bird cage."

"What the people need is a referendum law through which they can exercise their direct democratic rights guaranteed by the Constitution, not something that hinders them," Lin told reporters yesterday afternoon.

Earlier in the morning, KMT legislative leader Tseng Yung-chuan (曾永權) told the press conference that the KMT-PFP draft stipulates two kinds of referendums: national and regional.

"Only the general public could initiate referendums, and not government agencies, as is proposed by the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) draft initiative and referendum law (創制複決法)," Tseng said.

In the opposition's draft, a quorum of 1 percent of votes cast in the previous presidential election would be required to call for a national referendum. The referendum would then be held only if 5 percent of the electorate endorsed the call with a petition.

But in a regional referendum, 2 percent of votes cast in elections for municipality and local government chiefs would be required to call for a regional referendum, and signatures of 10 percent of that electorate would be required to hold a referendum.

The draft also requires that a 21-person review committee should be established in the Cabinet to study the proposals.

PFP Legislator Chou Hsi-wei (周錫瑋) said that the two parties proposed the draft to counter the Cabinet's strategy to force through referendum legislation.

In April last year, the Cabinet sent the draft initiative and referendum bill to the legislature for review, but lawmakers were deadlocked over which issues would be subject to this powerful form of direct democracy.

While the DPP's draft referendum bill was the only bill of its kind to pass a second reading during the last legislative session, the Cabinet later decided to withdraw that version and endorsed the DPP version in a bid to expedite the legislative process.

KMT lawmaker Huang Teh-fu (黃德福) said that the Cabinet should have proposed its own version of the referendum law and criticized the DPP's draft as "perfunctory" and "shameful."

PFP Legislator Feng Ting-kuo (馮定國) said that referendums should not be held in tandem with national or local elections because of concerns that certain parties would manipulate the referendums to sway the poll.
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