DPP to submit petition for referendum on KMT assets

A petition calling for a referendum on forcing the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) to return stolen assets to the national coffers will be sent to the government for review, as 83,000 signatures have been collected, making it a formal petition.

"If the petition is approved, we have to collect 830,000 signatures within six months to call a referendum," Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chai Trong-rong (蔡同榮) said at a press conference yesterday.

The DPP lawmakers said they hoped the referendum could be held during the next legislative election in December next year.

Collecting signatures to call for the referendum is aimed at keeping the KMT from avoiding its obligation to return its assets to the nation and the people, Tsai said.

Considering that it took more than two months for DPP lawmakers to collect the first-stage 83,000 signatures, Tsai said it would not be easy to collect 10 times that number within the six-month time limit.

The KMT is scheduled to issue a report today on how the party has handled its assets. The KMT's rivals describe the assets -- which were acquired from the Japanese colonial government and private businesses and individuals when the KMT took control of Taiwan in 1945 -- as "stolen."

DPP Legislator Yen Wen-chung (顏文章) said the KMT's assets, valued at about NT$150 billion (US$4.58 billion) between 2000 and last year, had diminished "precipitously" to some NT$5 billion since Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) took over as KMT chairman last year.

Yen said he suspected that the intention behind Ma's decision to issue a report on the party's assets was, "firstly, to shift responsibility for its shrinking assets to former chairman Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), and secondly, to tell the public that KMT has few assets to return to the people."

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Assets report just a Ma makeover