A political pressure group yesterday called on voters to boycott the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in the upcoming elections, arguing that political parties that oppose amendments to the Referendum Law (公投法) do not deserve to be supported.
The Nuke-4 Referendum Initiative Association expressed its disappointment with the KMT, which it said had teamed up with other opposition parties to enact a restrictive Referendum Law in November 2003.
Chief executive Iap Phok-bun (
In March last year, the association launched a petition asking the electorate to pressure their local representatives to revise the Referendum Law.
In October, the association began sending letters to legislators and visiting their offices. Except for Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Cheng Yun-peng (鄭運鵬), Iap said all DPP and Taiwan Solidarity Union legislators had endorsed the association's proposal.
President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), who doubles as DPP chairman, and DPP presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) had also given the association their backing, Iap said.
The KMT, on the other hand, has been resistant, except for Chiang Yi-hsiung (江義雄), Iap said.
Iap said the association had sent five letters to KMT presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and three letters to KMT Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄), requesting a meeting to discuss the matter. Neither of the men had responded, Iap said.
Iap urged voters to boycott the KMT in both the legislative and presidential elections.
"The KMT simply lacks the spirit of democracy and does not deserve to exist in a democracy such as Taiwan," he said. "They ignore the rights of the people and do not deserve the public's votes."
Iap, however, did not endorse Hsieh. He said that the association only wanted the electorate to boycott those who disregard the rights of the people.
"[Our ultimate aim] is not to boycott the KMT in the elections, but raise public awareness of the people. We want the public to realize that they are the real masters of the country," he said.
Arguing that high thresholds hinder the exercise of democracy, the association has proposed to lower the threshold required for a referendum petition to pass from 80,000 voters -- or 0.5 percent of eligible voters in the last presidential election -- to 100.
It also seeks to lower the second threshold for a referendum proposal from 800,000 voters -- or 5 percent of eligible voters in the last presidential election -- to 240,000 voters, or 1.5 percent.
The association also proposed the abolition of the Referendum Review Committee and the lowering of the number of voters required to make a referendum valid from 50 percent to 25 percent.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods