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Lawmakers gag at cutting referendum threshold to 100

President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) vocal support of the campaign to lower the threshold to hold a referendum met with dissenting opinions from both the ruling and opposition parties.

"I agree we should make the threshold lower, but whether this should be cut to as low as 100 should be further discussed," Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) said on the legislative floor yesterday during a question-and-answer session.

Su said that current requirements for calling a referendum were too difficult to meet, which in turn "stifles the spirit of direct democracy."

The Referendum Law (公投法) stipulates that the signatures of at least 0.5 percent of eligible voters at the last presidential election are needed for a national referendum proposal to be established.

Moreover, it stipulates that the signatures of 5 percent of the eligible voters must be collected within six months for the referendum to be held.

Chen last week threw his support behind a campaign staged by the Nuke-4 Referendum Initiative Association calling for a revision of five regulations to facilitate the holding of referendums.

The group's proposal would bring down the required signatures for the first stage from about 83,000 to 100 and that for the second stage from 830,000 to 249,000.

A group of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers told a press conference yesterday that they strongly opposed the change.

"It's not that the threshold is not negotiable, but what the president said about needing only 100 people to introduce a referendum petition sounded like a joke," KMT Legislative caucus whip Hsu Shao-ping (徐少萍) said.

"The idea of having 100 people call a referendum is just pie in the sky. There are 140,000 boroughs in the country, and it's likely that each of them will have a referendum petition," KMT Legislator Chi Kuo-tung (紀國棟) said.

The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) echoed this sentiment, with party whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) saying the proposed threshold of 100 people was "too low."

"Should that be adopted, I'm afraid there might be an astronomical list of topics to be put to a popular vote," he said.

Ker said the DPP legislative caucus would discuss how the legal thresholds should be adjusted and come up with a final package of draft amendments next Monday.

The package will then be referred to the legislative floor for deliberation and approval, he said.

"Hopefully, the package can be assigned to the standing committee for screening by April 27," he added.

Additional reporting by CNA
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