President Chen Shui-bian (
The options are: implement martial law; invalidate the results of the pan-blue controlled authorities; replace local election commission heads, or get the CEC to delay the elections.
Chen made the comments after Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) earlier yesterday dismissed Chen warning on Saturday that election results in cities and counties that employ two-step voting could be annulled.
PHOTO: CNA
Ma said Chen's warning was not to be taken seriously, adding that Chen, as the nation's leader and a lawyer, should know that only the judicial system can annul the results of an election and that political parties may not seek to annul the results with the court.
"The president has no authority to declare election results invalid ... He was emotional at the time and we shouldn't take his words too seriously," Ma said while campaigning for KMT legislative candidates in Taipei.
Chen had said that the government could declare legislative election results invalid if any of the 18 pan-blue-governed city and county governments defy a Central Election Commission directive to use one-step voting in the January polls.
At issue is whether voters should receive ballots for the legislative elections and two referendums simultaneously (one-step voting), or in succession (two-step voting).
Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (
Ma defended the two-step voting process yesterday as a safer and less confusing option and said Chen -- who was reelected in 2004, when two-step voting was first employed -- shouldn't oppose two-step voting.
"President Chen benefited from two-step voting three years ago. How can he oppose the process now?" Ma said.
Ma said he was not worried about the pan-blue-governed cities and counties, which vowed to carry out two-step voting. He said 70 percent of the population would vote under these administrations, adding that the rest of Taiwan under pan-green local governments could see "chaos" because of the one-step voting system.
Hau yesterday stood firm on the city government's decision.
"The city government is simply doing what we should do. I think this incident has proved a great lesson in law and order for the people," he said.
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
UPDATED TEST: The new rules aim to assess drivers’ awareness of risky behaviors and how they respond under certain circumstances, the Highway Bureau said Driver’s license applicants who fail to yield to pedestrians at intersections or to check blind spots, or omit pointing-and-calling procedures would fail the driving test, the Highway Bureau said yesterday. The change is set to be implemented at the end of the month, and is part of the bureau’s reform of the driving portion of the test, which has been criticized for failing to assess whether drivers can operate vehicles safely. Sedan drivers would be tested regarding yielding to pedestrians and turning their heads to check blind spots, while drivers of large vehicles would be tested on their familiarity with pointing-and-calling
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