The Ministry of National Defense yesterday acknowledged that it had considered sending home over 13,000 on-duty service members for Saturday's elections but later dropped the plan for fear of violating regulations and thus political neutrality.
Major General Wang Chun-chiang (
"These service members, including officers and soldiers, were considered to be able to return to [their] camp within half a day because their homes were within a two-hour drive," Wang said.
"The plan was finally dropped because it violated regulations revised after the implementation of the National Defense Law (
The laws were passed by the previous KMT government in January 2000.
Wang did not explain, however, what change had been made to those regulations governing the execution of combat missions during important occasions such as presidential elections.
He made the remarks yesterday at the ministry's weekly news conference. The explanation followed Deputy Minister of National Defense Lin Chong-pin's (林中斌) candid acknowledgement at the legislature on Monday that there were 13,000-plus service members who could have been voted but were not able to.
Not fully informed himself about the matter, Lin failed to explain clearly what had happened to opposition lawmakers who bombarded him with questions.
Lin reiterated that the matter had nothing to do with an emergency-response mechanism that was activated in the wake of the shootings of President Chen Shui-bian (
The ministry yesterday tried very hard to clear up the questions about why the 13,000 service members did not vote.
Ministry spokesman Major General Huang Suei-sheng (
"The plan was just a plan. It did not go into effect. Nor had it been announced at all," Huang said.
If the plan had been put into effect, it might have been seen as an attempt by the military to violate political neutrality.
Under the old regulations, service members took turns to vote in the presidential elections, with half of them going home in the morning and the other half in the afternoon, defense officials said.
This was what happened in the 2000 election.
But the new rules require all personnel assigned for duty on election day to remain at their posts, with no leave time to vote.
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