Mon, Dec 24, 2007 page3

• Lin I-hsiung backs one-step voting

  • STAFF WRITER, WITH CNA
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  The one-step voting format decided on by the Central Election Commission (CEC) for the Jan. 12 elections is more convenient for voters than the two-step format, former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) chairman Lin I-hsiung (林義雄) said on Saturday in a television interview.

  Speaking on a political program on SET TV, Lin said the dispute over the one-step voting and two-step voting formats stems from the regulation in the Referendum Act (公投法) that stipulates that the turnout rate must exceed 50 percent for a referendum to pass, adding that it is almost impossible to attain and that such a requirement does not exist in advanced democratic countries.

  In order to boost the turnout rate, Lin said, the distribution and collection of the ballots should be as convenient as possible within the law, adding that the "one-step" format is the most appropriate.

  The reason why the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) wants to adopt the two-step voting format, in which voters will receive and cast their referendum ballots only after they cast their ballots for the legislative elections, is to drive down the turnout rate, Lin said.

  The two-step voting format is more troublesome, and therefore people are less likely to collect the referendum ballots, he said.

  Lin said it makes no sense for the KMT to propose referendums only to try to kill them, predicting that "such a move will damage the party's image."

  The KMT initiated the referendum on fighting government corruption to counter the DPP-initiated referendum on retrieving the KMT's stolen assets, and that the party initiated the referendum on rejoining the UN under the country's official title, the Republic of China, to counter the DPP's referendum on the country applying for UN membership under the name Taiwan.

  Lin said that, as a matter of fact, whichever voting format is adopted, the difference in turnout rate will be no more than three percentage points, and Taiwanese voters are intelligent enough to know how to vote.

  Lin also said that the the strategy of KMT presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to bring down the DPP was a mistake.

  "If you want to pull someone down from his position, you must be underneath that person, " Lin said, adding that although Ma is a "nice" and "friendly" person, his campaign strategy of finding fault with the DPP does not put him in a better position in the presidential race.

  Citing last year's attempted impeachment of scandal-plagued President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) as an example, Lin said that as much as he considered Chen's behavior inappropriate, the KMT should not have wasted time on trying to impeach him as the attempt had no chance of succeeding in the legislature.

  Instead, Lin said, the KMT, which has a slight majority in the legislature, should have focused on coming up with policies and bills favorable for the country and people.

  "If the KMT had done so, the DPP would have fallen far behind," Lin said.

  Therefore, he said, Ma should lead the KMT to get to a higher level that the DPP cannot reach by making good use of its strength and trying to perform better in the legislature.

  Commenting on the presidential election next March, Lin pointed out that if the DPP candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) wins, it will be a message to the KMT to the effect that it did poorly in the legislature by just trying to bring down the DPP.
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