Responding to the pan-blue camp's call to immediately recount the controversial presidential ballots, Premier Yu Shyi-kun yesterday announced that the Cabinet had completed draft amendments to the Presidential and Vice Presidential Election and Recall Law (總統副總統選罷法) to allow the Central Election Commission (CEC) to do so.
The law allows only prosecutors or courts to open the ballots boxes after they are sealed. It may take weeks, even months, for the court to reach a verdict on the case.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) and People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) have filed two suits to suspend President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and Vice President Annette Lu's (呂秀蓮) re-election and to declare the balloting a fraud.
If the legal revision is approved by the legislature this week, Yu said that he expected the CEC to complete the recount of the ballots by next weekend. The cost is estimated at between NT$300 million and NT$500 million. The law will also be made retroactive to last Saturday's election.
In addition to calling on Legislative Yuan Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (
Under the draft, the CEC would be able to open sealed ballot boxes from the presidential election to conduct recounts of the ballots.
The draft would also allow presidential and vice presidential candidates receiving the second-highest number of ballots to file for a request to the CEC for a recount of the ballots seven days after the election if the gap between them and the winning candidates is less than 1 percent. The result of the recount would be final.
According to Yu, he did not come to the decision until late Monday night when he discussed the matter with high-ranking Cabinet officials and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers at the Cabinet for two-and-a-half hours.
"We thought it was a better idea to have the CEC, instead of the judges or prosecutors, to do the recount of ballots because while there're 180,000 civil servants assisting in Saturday's election and referendum, there are only 700 to 800 prosecutors nationwide to do the job," Yu said.
Chen also played a pivotal role in the Cabinet's decision-making process, Yu said.
"The president instructed me to handle the election controversy openly and transparently one day after the election and to study existing laws to see whether the CEC could conduct a recount of the ballots," he said.
While the DPP legislative caucus failed to push through the draft amendments to the legislature's procedural committee yesterday, Yu personally handed a copy of the draft to Wang yesterday morning during a tea party hosted by Chen at the Presidential Office with leaders of the five government branches.
"It really baffles us exactly what the opposition alliance wants as they keep changing their appeals. Now even the pan-blue dominated legislature refuses to take up the case of the legal revision," Yu said. "On the one hand, they're crying foul and demanding an immediate recount of the ballots, but on the other hand, they boycott the legal revision allowing the CEC to do so, which would be more efficient and take up less time."
The pan-blue camp had originally requested the judge do the recount, then they changed their mind to ask the prosecutors to do the job, and then the CEC. Wang yesterday even proposed that the controversy could be resolved if the president declared an emergency decree.
Yu, however, said that it would be inappropriate for the president to do so.
"It sounds odd for the president-elect to be asked by the dead-enders in the election to issue an emergency decree to recount the ballots," Yu said. "Would the opposition camp come up with another excuse if the recount still declares them the losers?"
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