Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) said yesterday that the legislature to be elected at the end of this year will be better able to revise the Referendum Law (公投法) to strengthen the nation's democracy.
During an interview at the Presidential Office, Lu said that when the legislature passed the law last November, it was done in a rush, and that there were some imperfections that required revision.
She said it would be difficult for the current legislature to revise the law because of the political make-up of the body, saying that after the March 20 election there would be a reshuffle of the political landscape.
She predicted that after the legislative election the structure of the legislature would be healthier.
"The new legislature can revise the Referendum Law to make Taiwan move toward solid democracy," she said.
At present the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the People First Party (PFP) dominate the 225-seat body.
Lu stressed that as the masters of a sovereign country, the people of Taiwan would have to take responsibility for their actions, and that people voting in the referendum will understand this because of their knowledge of world affairs and the accomplishments of democracy.
She said that the knowledge and world view of the people of Taiwan had reached a level unprecedented in four centuries and that this ability should not be underestimated.
"The people of Taiwan are well aware of the impact that they have on the world and the impact of the world on them," she said.
Turning to the international reaction to President Chen Shui-bian's (
"We finally made the international community pay attention to us," she said.
"Taiwan is rarely in the international spotlight, and from this perspective, we got what we wanted, although we had to pay a small price, too," she said.
Lu said that she would expand upon her vision for the nation in tomorrow's televised forum sponsored by the Central Election Commission for vice presidential candidates.
"My speech will focus on my vision for Taiwan's future development, including the consolidation of our young democracy as well as Taiwan's national identity and its movement toward globalization," she said.
Tomorrow's debate will be the only one to feature the candidates for the vice presidency.
"Because of my decision to attend the forum, I have had to drop my plans to take part in the `1 million people hand-in-hand' rally," she said, adding that she regretted not being able to join the rally.
Lu said PFP Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) did not agree to her suggestion to ask the election commission to postpone the forum to the following Saturday to allow her to participate in the rally.
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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