Youth political group Flanc Radical yesterday began petitioning for a referendum on recovering the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) ill-gotten party assets.
Flanc Radical convener Chen I-chi (陳奕齊) said he hopes to see voters cast three ballots in the joint elections in January next year — for the presidential race, legislative polls and the group’s proposed referendum.
The group said that the KMT’s wealth of party assets were unjustly obtained through its legacy of authoritarian rule, adding that it was abnormal for a political party in a democratic country to operate party-owned companies for profit.
Photo: Lo Pei-der, Taipei Times
They said that the KMT’s assets have long created an imbalanced playing field in the nation’s politics and served as an obstacle to efforts at transitional justice.
At a news conference in Taipei yesterday, Flanc Radical unveiled its petition for the proposed referendum.
The referendum would ask voters whether they support legislation to recover illegitimately procured party assets — which includes the entirety of a party’s assets except for party membership fees, political donations and electoral subsidiaries.
The proposed referendum would use the exact same wording as an earlier referendum held in 2008 during the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration under then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), which failed to pass because it did not attract a 50 percent voter turnout, as required by law.
Academia Sinica researcher Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) lauded the group’s efforts, saying it displayed courage, as current regulations render petitions to launch referendums extremely difficult.
By law, general referendums can be initiated by members of the public through a two-stage process: a first-phase petition that requires the support of 0.5 percent of the electorate, followed by a second phase that requires signatures from 5 percent.
With about 18 million eligible voters, the petition’s two phases will require the support of about 90,000 and 900,000 signatures respectively.
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