President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday called on the legislature to accelerate the progress of an amendment that would help cities and counties merge into special municipalities.
The proposed amendment to the Local Government Law (地方制度法) should be passed by next month, so that Taichung City and County can be merged according to schedule, the president said.
“The content of the amendment is neutral, as it could be adopted by all cities and counties ... I believe both camps hope to control the number of elections so we don’t have elections every year,” Ma said yesterday when meeting with the press at the Presidential Office.
Allowing Taichung City and Taichung County to merge was one of Ma’s election campaign promises last year.
The Central Election Commission said if the legislature failed to pass the amendment before April 20, it would be practically impossible for any city or county to merge before the year-end city and county chief elections.
If a city and county complete their merger after the elections at the end of this year, the commission must hold another election for the chief of the new special municipality at the end of next year.
Commenting on legislative by-elections, Ma said the “bigger environment” contributed to the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) defeat in Miaoli last week, but failed to discuss what “other factors” affected the result.
“We are willing to take the responsibility for the defeat even though there are factors other than government performance ... I think you all know what the other factors are,” he said.
The KMT candidate, Chen Luan-ying (陳鑾英), lost the by-election to independent candidate Kang Shih-ju (康世儒) despite a concerted effort by party officials to campaign for Chen.
Kang withdrew from the KMT to run in the election as an independent candidate after the party nominated Chen, wife of former KMT legislator Lee E-tin (李乙廷). Lee’s election was annulled in December after he was found guilty of vote-buying.
Faced with another legislative by-election in Taipei’s Da-an District (大安) next Saturday, Ma said he would give his full support to KMT candidate Chiang Nai-shin (蔣乃辛), but declined to confirm if he had plans to actively campaign for him.
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