Print

Mail

wiki links

Election official rejects transfer

Taipei City Election Commission Chairman Samuel Wu (吳秀光) yesterday challenged the Central Election Commission's (CEC) decision to replace him for insisting on two-step voting.

Wu said yesterday that he would not leave the position.

"The official notice did not explain the reason for the replacement ... There will not be two commissioners in the commission," Wu told a press conference yesterday at Taipei City Hall.

Premier Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄) approved a CEC request to replace Wu on Thursday night and appointed commission member Tsai Tien-chi (蔡天啟) to take Wu's seat.

Wu, who doubles as Taipei deputy mayor, yesterday confirmed he received an electronic version of the official notice from the premier after work.

The commission is a collegium, Wu said, and changing the commissioner won't influence the commission's handling of election affairs.

Wu said he would file a complaint with the Civil Service Protection and Training Commission, adding that the replacement was illegal.

Tsai yesterday said that he would not gather commission members to discuss election affairs until he received official notice of the appointment.

Cabinet Spokesman Shieh Jhy-wey (謝志偉) yesterday said Wu "has it all wrong" and stressed that Wu had not been dismissed.

The notice sent to Wu was for an "administrative transfer," Shieh said.

Wu would continue as a Taipei Election Commission official but no longer as its head, he said, calling it a "personnel adjustment."

"The law clearly stipulates that the CEC is under the jurisdiction of the central government. Wu's argument for the two-step voting system doesn't stand a chance because the decision to adopt the one-step voting format has already been adopted," Shieh told the Taipei Times in a telephone interview.

Shieh said Wu's insistence on two-step voting in Taipei carried no authority because it contradicted the CEC decision.

Wu's decision to protest his transfer shows that he is confused, Shieh said, adding that the Taipei Election Commission was an appointed post and therefore not bound to a three-year term.

In other words, Shieh said, the CEC's superior, the Executive Yuan, reserves the right to replace anyone with another person better qualified for the position at any time.

Meanwhile, at a separate setting, CEC Secretary-General Teng Tien-yu (鄧天祐) said that more local election heads might be replaced if they failed to follow the CEC decision on one-step voting.

Teng also told a news conference yesterday that the CEC had received an official request from the Executive Yuan transferring Wu.

The CEC and pan-blue local election commissions have been in dispute over voting procedures since the central commission adopted one-step voting last month.

One-step voting would see election and referendum ballots handed to voters together at the entrance to poll stations on Jan. 12, when two referendums will be held alongside the legislative elections.

The pan-blue camp has vowed to employ two-step voting at voting stations in the nation's 18 pan-blue governed cities and counties, in which voters cast their election ballots before receiving referendum ballots.

Teng said that since the premier has the authority to appoint local election commission chiefs, "he of course has the authority to appoint another person to the position."

The premier has also appointed Hsinchu City Election Commission member Wu Chiu-ku (吳秋榖) to head the panel after Hsinchu Mayor Lin Cheng-tse (林政則) resigned from the post, Teng said.

Teng said the CEC has not received Taitung County Election Commission Chairman Chuang Chung-wen's (莊炯文) resignation.

"Once we have received it, we'll notify the Cabinet so that a new person can take over the seat as soon as possible," he said.
This story has been viewed 1194 times.