Candidates for the National Assembly cruised Taiwan's streets yesterday to solicit votes ahead of a poll on constitutional reform.
The election on Saturday will select party-affiliated deputies to the National Assembly that will vote on proposed constitutional changes aimed at halving the number of seats in the legislature and replacing an unwieldy proportional representation system.
The assembly will also vote on whether the nation can hold referendums to approve future constitutional changes -- a controversial issue because China fears Taiwan could use such plebiscites to change the nation's political status and declare formal independence.
However, Taiwan's two largest political parties support the proposed constitutional changes, which will likely be approved, regardless of which party triumphs in Saturday's election.
President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) has said his party will only use referendums to approve constitutional amendments to streamline the political system, and will not seek to change the nation's status.
Saturday's vote follows last week's historic visits to China by KMT Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) -- including a groundbreaking meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) -- and James Soong (宋楚瑜), chairman of the People First Party, which also supports unification.
Under the proposed reforms to streamline the legislature, a first-past-the-post voting system would be introduced in 2008, under which only two candidates per constituency would be elected -- one by popular vote and the other by party affiliation.
Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) was sentenced to six months in prison, commutable to a fine, by the New Taipei District Court today for contravening the Personal Data Protection Act (個人資料保護法) in a case linked to an alleged draft-dodging scheme. Wang allegedly paid NT$3.6 million (US$114,380) to an illegal group to help him evade mandatory military service through falsified medical documents, prosecutors said. He transferred the funds to Chen Chih-ming (陳志明), the alleged mastermind of a draft-evasion ring, although he lost contact with him as he was already in detention on fraud charges, they said. Chen is accused of helping a
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