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Draft legislation takes aim at scores of defunct parties

Many of the 127 political parties registered with the Ministry of the Interior (MOI) are inactive, but there are no provisions for canceling a party's registration, ministry officials said yesterday.

The Civil Organizations Act (人民團體法) states that political parties must be independent, which means that the ministry is powerless to deregister defunct parties.

"The MOI can only disband the parties if they violate the Constitution," said Chuang Kuo-hsiang (莊國祥) section chief of the ministry's Civil Affairs Department. "Unless these parties say they have disbanded, the ministry has no right to deregister any parties."

The ministry had considered visiting parties to assess their status but abandoned the idea, fearing it would be interpreted as political pressure, he said.

Chuang said that a draft Political Party Law (政黨法), had been submitted to the legislature, and that the legislation would cancel the registration of any party that fails to hold a congress or participate in elections.

Meanwhile, ministry officials said that only 17 of the 127 political parties used the word "Taiwan" in their titles, while 67 made reference to "China."

One reason for this is that the former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime stipulated that "China" or the "Republic of China" must be included in party names, ministry officials said.

This practice was only discontinued following a Council of Grand Justices constitutional interpretation on April 1, 1999.

Additional reporting by Jewel Huang
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