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Opposition makes U-turn on referendum law issue

Opposition lawmakers might cancel the ban on the government's initiative to hold referendums when the legislature meets for the passage of a referendum law next week, a legislator said yesterday.

"The KMT-PFP alliance members reached consensus that we would defend lawmakers' initiative to have referendums for as long as the referendum law authorizes the government to practice this initiative," said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Apollo Chen (陳學聖).

This would be the alliance's position in the final stage of formulating the referendum law, in case the government dominates a special legislative sitting for referendum legislation next week, Chen said.

He was one of several KMT members invited to a pan-blue alliance closed-door meeting yesterday. The meeting, attended by Taipei City Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and certain legislators, was called to decide on a strategy for the upcoming lawmaking showdown at the Legislative Yuan.

The KMT would also demand that referendum initiators shoulder the political responsibility for filing such proposals, if the DPP seems to win support from independent lawmakers to form the majority in the legislature and approve a referendum initiative, Chen said.

KMT legislative leader Lee Chia-chin (李嘉進) confirmed Chen's remarks.

"The KMT could be open to discussion about whether the government should have this initiative," he said.

"But the KMT insists that auxiliary measures, such as compulsory political responsibility, should be imposed on initiators when it comes to permitting people other than citizens to call for a referendum," Lee said.

A draft referendum law presented by the KMT originally prohibited the government from initiating referendums, because it claims that calling for a referendum was exclusively the right of citizens.

Lee said KMT and PFP caucuses have been authorized to handle multiparty negotiations concerning the referendum lawmaking procedure, referring to the feasibility of the pan-blue alliance's position on certain disputes. These include the government's right to initiate a referendum and restrictions on referendum topics.

He revealed that the KMT would further exemplify its determination to push for referendums by initiating a petition at the legislature next week for a constitutional amendment to add referendums to the ROC Constitution.

Lawmakers pledged last week that the referendum law should clear the legislative floor by the end of this month. They also decided that a two-day extra meeting should be held from Wednesday to finalize the law.

The government should have the initiative to hold referendums since referendums are supposed to be supplementary to the representative system.

This was a view held consistently by the TSU, said Lo Chih-ming (羅志明), legislative leader of the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU).
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