The Central Election Commission has not been trying to block referendum proposals by the pan-blue camp and the new Referendum Act (公投法) is no longer a “bird cage,” commission Chairman Chen In-chin (陳英鈐) said yesterday.
Before the legislature passed an amendment to lower the legal voting age and the thresholds for initiating, seconding and passing referendums in December last year, the act was widely mocked as a “bird cage” act due to its tight restrictions.
“Over the past 12 years [before the amendment], 17 proposals were made, but only four made it to the final voting stage,” Chen said. “Since the new Referendum Act took effect in January, the commission has received 14 referendum proposals in just three months and five have already passed its initial reviews.”
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
The new law has helped increase public participation in politics and enhances Taiwan’s reputation, Chen added.
Several legislators questioned the commission’s neutrality, mentioning the way it handled the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) proposal to hold a referendum on banned food imports from Fukushima and other areas in Japan following the 2011 nuclear disaster, and Olympic medalist Chi Cheng’s (紀政) proposal to apply to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to compete in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics as “Taiwan” instead of “Chinese Taipei.”
The new law was designed to undo the “bird cage,” but it has only created a new cage, KMT caucus whip Lin Te-fu (林德福) said.
The commission must not censor certain referendum topics and should not have blocked the KMT’s proposal on Japanese food imports by requiring a public hearing on the issue, he said.
The proposal to compete in the Olympics as Taiwan could be unconstitutional, as Chi said the team’s name must be changed to reflect the true territory of the nation, KMT Legislator Sra Kacaw (鄭天財) said, adding that the nation’s territory is defined in the Constitution.
If such a proposal were to be passed, but rejected by the IOC, Taiwanese athletes could lose their chance to participate in the Games, he said.
The referendum proposal has passed a public hearing and is to be approved once authorities confirm the collected signatures.
Chen denied that the commission is biased against opposition parties and pro-unification groups, saying that no proposals have been rejected so far.
The KMT proposal would ask voters whether they agree to allow food imports from Fukushima and other areas that were banned after the 2011 nuclear disaster, but referendums can only be passed if enough people vote “yes,” Chen said, adding that the commission advised the initiators to rephrase the question so that voters could vote “yes,” rather than “no,” to support the initiators’ objectives, but the party refused to modify the wording.
The Olympic proposal would not involve changes to the Constitution, as it only aims to submit an application to rename the nation’s sports teams and would not require that the team not compete should the IOC reject it, Chen said.
The commission would not make any decisions based on the political leanings of referendum initiators, he said, adding: “The bird cage has been removed.”
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai