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Pan-blue camp accuses Executive Yuan of meddling

Despite a call by Premier Yu Shyi-kun in his administrative report that all Taiwanese should participate in the historic first national referendum, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and People First Party (PFP) lawmakers said yesterday that the Executive Yuan had inter-fered in the Central Election Commission's preparatory work for the referendum.

"The Executive Yuan has abused its power to make two mistakes. First, it has interfered with the presidential election, which should be carried out independently," PFP whip Chou Hsi-wei (周錫瑋) said when lawmakers reconvened the the Legislative Yuan's regular session yesterday.

The second mistake, Chou said, was that the Executive Yuan had ordered the commission to follow its instructions to conduct the referendum under the pretext that the supervision could prevent the commission from making any mistakes.

"This is the severest violation of laws of the Executive Yuan. The intervention discredits a democratic election," Chou said.

Chou reacted after Thursday's disagreement between members of the commission and the Cabinet about who has the ultimate say over the design of ballots and how the voting should proceed.

The Executive Yuan has instructed the CEC to print the two referendum questions on different ballots and in different colors.

"We are considering taking the premier and other officials to court for their infringement of laws by commandeering the referendum plan," the director of the PFP's Center of Policy Research Chang Hsien-yao (張顯耀) said at a PFP news conference at the Legislative Yuan.

The premier responded by saying that the Executive Yuan was duty-bound to supervise the commission's work on the referendum, given that it was the top administrative body that could take on this historic mission.

Yu said the Executive Yuan was the chief administrative body for supervising the first national referendum, while the commission was responsible for implementing the referendum.

The commission was doing its job independently, although holding a referendum was not part of its responsibilities according to the law, Yu said.

"The Executive Yuan will shoulder its responsibility to make sure the referendum complies with the law," he said.

Meanwhile opposition lawma-kers Liao Fung-te (廖風德), Liu Wen-hsiung (劉文雄) and Lee Tung-hao (李桐豪) yesterday disclosed that the Taipei City Government is planning an alternative way for voters to cast their referendum ballots.

The commission's chairman, George Huang (黃石城), replied that the city government must obey the central government's decision about carrying out the referendum.

"The way polling booths are set up must be the same nationwide. The city government, if it is considering a different way of conducting the poll, must follow the rules made by the central administration," Huang said.
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