The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday protested what it said was the Central Election Commission’s (CEC) tightening of review regulations for referendum proposals, and accused CEC Chairman Chen In-chin (陳英鈐) of demeaning proposals submitted by the KMT when talking to reporters.
The commission earlier this month published a set of regulations on reviewing the content of referendum proposals, targeting duplicate wording in different proposals.
Chen told a news conference on Monday that 60 percent of the penmanship on three KMT referendum proposals on air pollution is identical, and some signatures gathered during the referendum petition drives were allegedly in the names of dead people.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
The new regulations contain ambiguous language on the creation of “review task forces” at household registration offices, making their implementation troublesome, KMT caucus secretary-general William Tseng (曾銘宗) said.
He also took issue with a regulation stipulating that the people tasked with determining whether there are duplicate signatures on referendum petitions make a judgement based on the shades of ink used, because booths set up by the KMT to gather signatures provided pens for people to use to sign their names.
One regulation stipulates a NT$3 bonus for household registration officers for each petition they rule has been duplicated, which would encourage public servants to scrap people’s referendum proposals, Tseng said.
The KMT caucus condemns Chen’s frequent criticism of the KMT’s referendum proposals to the media, and it is considering suing Chen for slandering the KMT and proponents of its referendums, he said.
Tseng and colleagues Sra Kakaw and Huang Chao-shun (黃昭順) later went to the commission and demanded a meeting with Chen, which began at 2pm.
Tseng said he told Chen that as an official whose work requires absolute neutrality, he should be more discreet when speaking to the media.
Chen told his visitors that the commission had often been misquoted by the media.
For example, commission Deputy Chairman Chen Chao-chien (陳朝建) had never said that Friday was the deadline for the KMT to revise its referendum proposals and he had clarified the issue “dozens” of times, but some reporters seemed intent on distributing misleading information, Chen In-chin said.
The commission should promptly issue a statement whenever it is misquoted by media, Tseng said.
Chen In-chin responded by promising to pay special attention to “words put in his mouth.”
Meanwhile, the Democratic Progressive Party caucus said the KMT should apologize to the families of any dead person whose signature it had used on its referendum petitions.
The KMT should publicly release the petitions it gathered so that people could decide whether there was identical handwriting in the signatures, it said.
Public servants should report any suspected forgery to the authorities according to the Referendum Act (公民投票法), it added.
Additional reporting by Su Fun-her
NATIONAL SECURITY: Authorities are working to confirm the identities of the military personnel involved and investigating possible illegal conduct and regulatory violations Authorities are probing possible national security implications after Kinmen police and immigration officers on Sunday found a Chinese woman allegedly posing as a tourist while engaging in prostitution involving more than 10 military personnel. The woman, surnamed Chen (陳), has since been deported, authorities said, adding that investigators are still working to confirm the identities of those implicated, as the records only listed code names and aliases. The case stemmed from a report received by the Kinmen District Prosecutors’ Office on Friday last week from the Jinhu Precinct of the Kinmen County Police Bureau. On Sunday, police, along with the National Immigration
REASONS FOR TRAVEL: An assistant professor said that proposed amendments to penalize drivers if they used drugs overseas would not deter people from traveling People who operate a motor vehicle under the influence of marijuana would have their driver’s license revoked, even if they used the substance while overseas, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications said yesterday, citing proposed amendments to the Road Traffic Management and Penalty Act (道路交通管理處罰條例). The amendments would also authorize the government to revoke the licenses of people determined to have used Category 1 or Category 2 narcotics, even if they were not operating a vehicle while under the influence of drugs, as well as ban them from taking the license test for three years, the ministry said. People aged 18 or
GLOBALGIVING: ‘ Caving to external pressure is not acceptable for an organization that has cultivated justice reform and human rights for 30 years,’ one NGO said A slew of non-government organizations (NGOs) have withdrawn from the GlobalGiving fundraising platform after it announced it would use “Chinese Taipei” instead of “Taiwan” from next month. The Taiwan Good Rice Association wrote on Facebook on Friday that it was informed on April 28 via a teleconference call of the change, which was made because the platform wanted to operate in China. Taiwan Good Rice is to terminate all cooperative relationships with GlobalGiving in response to the platform’s “unilateral and non-negotiable” decision to remove references to Taiwan, the NGO said. “Taiwan is in the official name of Taiwan Good Rice Association and the
HEAVY WEATHER: Typhoon Jangmi is due to crash straight into the Ryukyus as airlines look to shift flights to larger aircraft or cancel flights to Okinawa entirely Taiwan’s international air carriers announced flight adjustments over the weekend as Typhoon Jangmi is forecast to hit the Ryukyu Islands today and tomorrow. The Central Weather Administration (CWA) upgraded Jangmi from a tropical storm to a typhoon at 8am yesterday, with the eye located 580km south of Naha city. It was moving north at 19kph. Today, China Airlines’ CI-120, CI-121, CI-122 and CI-123 flights between Taoyuan and Naha, Okinawa, have been canceled as well as CI-132 and CI-133 between Kaohsiung and Naha. EVA Air’s BR-112, BR-113, BR-186 and BR-185 flights between Taoyuan and Naha are also canceled. Low-cost carrier Tigerair Taiwan canceled IT-230,
RSS