The physical recount of the election ballots ended yesterday with President Chen Shui-bian (
DPP Secretary-General Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄) said lawyers for the KMT-People First Party (PFP) alliance challenged at least 40,000 ballots during the recount.
Around 23,000 originally marked as valid votes for Chen were disputed, while 16,000 counted as for Lien are now disputed.
Chang said that among the 330,000 invalid ballots, the ratio of ballots for Chen and Lien was 2:1, that is, it was clearly recognizable that 50 percent of the invalid ballots belonged to Chen and 25 percent of invalid ballots belonged to Lien.
Therefore, the Chen-Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) ticket beat the Lien-PFP Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) ticket by a difference of 6,000 votes, Chang said.
Although Chen was declared the winner by a razor-thin margin of 29,000 votes, it is impossible for the pan-blues to reverse the results even if the Taiwan High Court rules that the 6,000-plus disputed votes belong to Lien, Chang said.
"It is impossible for the pan-blue alliance to reverse the election results," Chang said.
He urged Lien and Soong to face facts -- and consider the public's demand for social stability.
Chang said if the ballot-identification standards mandated in the Election and Recall Law (選罷法) had not been amended last year, the Chen-Lu ticket would have won over the Lien-Soong ticket by around 100,000 votes.
DPP Deputy Secretary-General Lee Ying-yuan (李應元) also called on Lien and Soong to recognize the recount results and show their sportsmanship by attending the presidential inauguration tomorrow.
"The fairness of the election has been assured in the recount. The game is over. As the leaders of the opposition parties, Lien and Soong should acknowledge this fact and let the people to recover from the frenzy of the election," Lee said.
If Lien and Soong really regret-ted their loss and were determined to regain the support of the people, they should focus on the year-end legislative elections instead of using technical quibbles to try to deny the legitimacy of the March 20 results, Chang said.
Saying the people want the controversy to be ended soon, Chang cited a recent public opinion poll that said 73 percent of the the public felt it was impossible for the election result to be overturned while 53 percent did not want to see the result changed.
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan at 7pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter of the temblor was at sea, about 69.9km south of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 30.9km, it said. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County’s Changbin Township (長濱), where it measured 5 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 4 in Hualien, Nantou, Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua and Miaoli counties, as well as
Taiwan is to have nine extended holidays next year, led by a nine-day Lunar New Year break, the Cabinet announced yesterday. The nine-day Lunar New Year holiday next year matches the length of this year’s holiday, which featured six extended holidays. The increase in extended holidays is due to the Act on the Implementation of Commemorative and Festival Holidays (紀念日及節日實施條例), which was passed early last month with support from the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party. Under the new act, the day before Lunar New Year’s Eve is also a national holiday, and Labor Day would no longer be limited
COMMITMENTS: The company had a relatively low renewable ratio at 56 percent and did not have any goal to achieve 100 percent renewable energy, the report said Pegatron Corp ranked the lowest among five major final assembly suppliers in progressing toward Apple Inc’s commitment to be 100 percent carbon neutral by 2030, a Greenpeace East Asia report said yesterday. While Apple has set the goal of using 100 percent renewable energy across its entire business, supply chain and product lifecycle by 2030, carbon emissions from electronics manufacturing are rising globally due to increased energy consumption, it said. Given that carbon emissions from its supply chain accounted for more than half of its total emissions last year, Greenpeace East Asia evaluated the green transition performance of Apple’s five largest final
Taiwan is to extend its visa-waiver program for Philippine passport holders for another year, starting on Aug. 1, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said on Friday. Lin made the announcement during a reception in Taipei marking the 127th anniversary of Philippine independence and the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the Manila Economic and Cultural Office (MECO) in Taiwan, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The decision reflected Taiwan’s commitment to deepening exchanges with the Philippines, the statement cited Lin as saying, adding that it was a key partner under the New Southbound Policy launched in 2016. Lin also expressed hope
RSS