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Legislative elections and referendums: ANALYSIS: Referendums reflect the immaturity of a nation

A voter in Taipei picks up her legislative election ballots yesterday. The arrows on the floor read ``Not for picking up referendum ballots,'' left, and ``For picking up referendum ballots.'' PHOTO: GEORGE TSORNG, TAIPEI TIMES

The low turnouts for the two referendums yesterday suggested that a majority of Taiwanese still lack autonomy in terms of political participation, a political commentator said.

Neither the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) referendum on recovering the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) stolen assets nor the KMT-proposed referendum on giving the legislature investigative power met with success yesterday as both proposals suffered the same fate as their predecessor in 2004.

The total number of registered voters was 17,277,720, according to the Central Election Commission yesterday.

Votes in both referendums failed to pass the legal threshold -- 50 percent of the nation's total eligible voters, or 8.63 million voters --- for their outcome to be considered valid.

Compared to President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) referendum in 2004 on increasing the nation's purchase of anti-missile weaponry in the face of China's ballistic missile threat and another referendum on negotiations with China on the establishment of a peace and stability framework, there was a sharp decrease in the turnout for the referendums yesterday.

The nation's first two referendums back in 2004 attracted 45.17 percent and 45.11 percent of the total electorate of 16,507,179 while the DPP's KMT assets plebiscite yesterday only managed to engage 26.34 percent of the electorate in the poll.

Only 26.08 percent of voters chose to take part in the KMT's referendum -- the first one it had ever initiated.

This means only 4,550,881 voters cast their ballots in the DPP's poll, while 4,505,927 voters cast ballots for the KMT's proposal.

However, both referendums garnered a significant number of affirmative votes, with 3,891,170 voters supporting the DPP's proposal while 2,304,136 voted in favor of the KMT's proposal.

According to the Referendum Law (公投法), no similar proposals to the two referendums can be initiated within three years given their failure to pass the legal turnout threshold.

Political analysts said several factors may have contributed to the failure of the two referendums.

"The outcome of the referendums is not important. It is the turnout's impact on Taiwan's democracy that really matters," said political analyst Allen Houng (洪裕宏).

"In terms of [Taiwan's] democratic growth, it matters whether over half of the eligible voters collected their referendum ballots," he said.

Voters had failed to understand their ability to exercise their rights directly through referendums, he said.

The low turnout sent a message to the international community that "Taiwanese democracy remains in its infancy," he said.

"International observers may think that Taiwanese people do not regard the KMT's stolen assets as a problem and they may be very confused as to why people would not treat anti-corruption as an important issue," he said.

There was much work to do to ensure that people were independent of the influence of party politics, he said.

"We have the form of democracy but we do not have enough quality," Houng said.

Raymond Wu (吳瑞國), an associate professor at the College of Law at Fu-jen Catholic University, said that the turnout showed the KMT's boycott campaign of the referendums had been effective.

He was referring to the call issued by KMT Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄) two weeks prior to yesterday's polls urging voters to boycott the referendums despite the fact that one of them was initiated by the KMT itself.

Lo Chih-cheng (羅致政), a political science professor at Soochow University, held similar views, saying that the the KMT's boycott and a similar campaign by six minor parties scuppered the chances of the two referendums.

Houng attributed the low participation in the DPP-initiated referendum to voter apathy.

"Voters generally had a lukewarm response to the issue [KMT's stolen assets]. Over the years, voters have tended to regard the issue as [DPP] campaign talk. Plus, the DPP has made no breakthrough on the recovery of the assets over the past eight years," he said.

He added that the low turnout suggested some voters do not think the recovery of the KMT's stolen assets directly influences their livelihood.

As for the low participation in the KMT's referendum, Houng said it was because the party had not whole-heartedly pushed it to begin with.

The low participation in the two referendums also signified a certain number of independent voters who were discouraged by the perennial wrangling between the pan-blue and the pan-green camps, he said.

Lo told the Taipei Times that although the DPP-proposed referendum had failed, the number of affirmative votes the proposal received should serve as a warning to the KMT ahead of the upcoming presidential election in March.

"In a competitive race, any vote can make a difference. The KMT can choose to ignore these [affirmative] ballots, but the DPP will certainly not let go of the issue," Lo said.
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