Sat, Mar 12, 2011 page3

• CEC chair denies date set for combined elections

  COMPROMISED: Chang Po-ya said that if the presidential and legislative elections were held simultaneously, the plan to initiate absentee voting would have to be postponed

  • By Loa Iok-sin and Lin Shu-hui / Staff Reporters, with CNA
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  Central Election Commission (CEC) Chairwoman Chang Po-ya (張博雅) yesterday refuted reports from TV channel TVBS that the presidential and legislative elections would be held simultaneously on Jan. 14.

  Chang told a meeting in the legislature that the commission had yet to make a decision on whether the two elections would be merged into one.

  The commission plans to hold five public hearings on the issue throughout the country to gather public opinion and would “try” to make a final decision by the end of next month as per requests by lawmakers, who say the original June deadline may be too late for them to make campaign preparations, Chang said.

  She said it would technically be very difficult to implement absentee voting if the two elections were combined.

  If it were eventually decided that the two elections would be held simultaneously, the plan to introduce absentee voting for the presidential election would have to be postponed because of the complexity of organizing the legislative elections, she said.

  The presidential term runs until May 19 next year and the next term is scheduled to begin on May 20. The term of the seventh legislature lasts until Jan. 31 next year, with the eighth session due to be seated on Feb. 1.

  Presidential elections are usually held in March, while legislative elections usually take place in December or January.

  Since it is unlikely the date of the legislative election would be pushed back, a proposal has been made for the presidential election to be brought forward to January so that the two polls could be held simultaneously.

  Proponents of the idea say it would help conserve public resources and that there are currently too many elections. The estimated costs for the presidential and legislative elections are NT$10 billion (US$33.9 million) and NT$11 billion respectively.

  Combining the elections could save the nation between NT$7 billion and NT$8 billion, excluding the overhead for printing ballots, proponents have said.

  According to the Election and Recall Act (選舉罷免法), there is no legal reason the two elections cannot be combined.

  Article 35 of the Presidential and Vice Presidential Election and Recall Act (總統副總統選舉罷免法) stipulates that the presidential election must be held a month before a presidential term ends.

  According to the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法), legislative elections should be held 10 days prior to the end of a legislative session.

  However, some academics worry that combining the elections in the middle of January would create a four-month window between the presidential election and the swearing-in of the new president that could create a “political vacuum.”

  Taiwan Brain Trust president Lo Chih-cheng (羅致政) recently told a forum that in a scenario involving the transition of power — in this case from the KMT to the DPP — a defeated president should be barred from making any fundamental governmental decision until the new president is sworn in.

  Otherwise, a lame duck president could face tremendous pressure from the Chinese Communist Party to make a number of concessions in his or her last months in office that could severely undermine national security, he said.
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