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CEC head will not resign, Premier Yu Shyi-kun says

Premier Yu Shyi-kun confirmed yesterday that Central Election Commission (CEC) Chairman Huang Shih-cheng (黃石城) expressed his intention to resign, but was asked to stay on.

"He told me that he was recently under a lot of pressure from work," Yu said.

Huang went on to explain that he did not "officially resign" but instead "indicated that he could resign if he did a poor job."

"My definition of `doing a good job' is being fair, being politically neutral and doing everything in accordance with the law," he said.

Yu and Huang made the remarks in response to the questions filed by People First Party (PFP) Legislator Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) during an interpellation session at the legislature yesterday morning.

Lee asked Yu to confirm whether Huang offered his resignation after Huang was grilled by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Apollo Chen (陳學聖) and PFP Legislator Feng Ting-kuo (馮定國), who on Monday called on Huang to step down if he could not take the mounting pressure.

Facing the opposition camp's criticism of the election-day referendum, Yu said that it was merely a political gambit staged to politicize the issue.

"From opposing referendum legislation to supporting it, from boycotting the election-day referendum to refusing to cooperate with the CEC and to pick up the referendum ballots, as well as saying that the referendum would lead to a riot -- it's nothing but a series of vile political conspiracies," he said.

Lee retorted by saying that the Cabinet's domination of the CEC was a political ploy aimed at assisting President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) to win his re-election bid.

When asked how he planned to handle defiant local election commissions, Huang said that the matter would be discussed during today's commission meeting.

Meanwhile, amid physical and verbal clashes, the civic group led by UFO Radio Chairman Jaw Shaw-kong (趙少康) and independent lawmaker Sisy Chen (陳文茜) and Timothy Ting (丁庭宇), president of the Gallup Market Research Corp, Taiwan, won the lot drawing contest to play the opposing side in eight out of the 10 referendum debates.

Another group led by Kao Cheng-yen (高成炎), acting convener of the small Green Party and leader of the Association of the 21st Century Agenda (二十一世紀議程協會), will take part in two of the referendum debates.

The final line-up of the debaters on the opposing and supporting sides will be made public today.

The drawing was called after 48 civic groups who had collected sufficient signatures to pass the screening process failed to reach a compromise over who would face off with Cabinet officials, who will play the supporting side in the debate.

The negotiation process turned acrimonious after Jaw called Kao a "hooligan" and Kao and his group member Lee Ku-teh (李勵德) questioned the fairness of the draw.

Holding posters reading "Against the UFO gang's illegal monopoly" and "Save the March 20 referendum debates," Kao and Lee cried foul. To increase his odds of taking part in the debates, Jaw divided his group into 22 small groups in the drawing.

For fear that his group would be excluded from the debates, Lee snatched a handful of drawing sticks and begaan to run away. He was stopped by Jaw and Ting. The two groups then engaged in physical conflict, forcing the security guards to be called in to maintain order.

The 10 referendum debates will start on Feb. 29 and run for three consecutive Sundays.
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