Voter turnout would be an “important key” to whether two proposed referendums initiated by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) pass in August, KMT Chairman Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) said yesterday.
Since no elections are to be held on Aug. 28 — when referendums can next be held as stipulated by the Referendum Act (公民投票法) — voter turnout would be an “important key” to whether the referendums pass, Chiang said.
“To increase voter turnout, we must make more people aware of the importance and necessity” of the upcoming referendums, he said.
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
“Aug. 28 is very important for our health and our democracy, and even more important for the future of Taiwan,” he added.
Chiang made the remarks at KMT headquarters in Taipei during a news conference to launch a series of seminars and outdoor talks for the party’s referendum campaign.
Chiang, who is also a lawmaker, is the lead proponent of a referendum that would ask voters if they agree that referendums should be held on the same day as national elections if an election is scheduled to take place within six months of a proposal to hold a referendum being approved.
Meanwhile, KMT Legislator Lin Wei-chou (林為洲) has spearheaded a petition to hold a referendum to ask voters if they agree that the government should impose a complete ban on the importation of meat, offal and related products from pigs fed animal feed containing ractopamine.
The KMT proposed the latter referendum after President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on Aug. 28 last year announced that the government would ease restrictions on imports of US pork containing ractopamine. The policy took effect on Jan. 1.
The KMT on March 9 submitted about 1.05 million signatures to the Central Election Commission backing its two referendum petitions.
Chiang yesterday urged the commission to be neutral and objective in its review of the signatures, and not to delay the approval process.
The KMT said it plans to hold 73 seminars — one in each electoral district — this month and next month aimed at increasing local KMT representatives’ understanding of the party’s referendum proposals and training them on how to speak to the public about them.
At the end of next month, it plans to launch a series of more than 500 outdoor talks across the nation to promote the proposals at temples, markets, street corners and other places, it said, adding that in July and August, it would hold two larger events to garner more public support.
Aside from the two referendums proposed by the KMT, two others are likely to be held on Aug. 28. One is headed by Rescue Datan’s Algal Reefs Alliance convener Pan Chong-cheng (潘忠政) to move the site of a planned liquefied natural gas terminal in Taoyuan to protect the algal reef in the area. The other, headed by nuclear power advocate Huang Shih-hsiu (黃士修), aims to activate the mothballed Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Gongliao District (貢寮).
Sources from within the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) on Saturday said that while the party administration last week decided not to initiate any referendum proposals to counter the four referendums, it would launch 305 policy explanation sessions, starting next month, to call on the public to vote against all of the referendums.
An Executive Yuan official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the KMT is doing its best to distance itself from the nuclear power plant referendum, making it an obvious breakthrough point for the DPP’s strategy.
DPP Legislator Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) said that the Tsai administration, aside from highlighting the broad direction of its policies to garner public support, could target New Taipei City, which is home to two nuclear power plants, and Taipei, which is in range should an accident happen at either of the two plants, to build up anti-nuclear power sentiment against Huang’s proposed referendum.
The government should also highlight the scientific facts regarding its decision to import US pork containing ractopamine residues to persuade the public to vote against the KMT’s proposed referendum, she said.
Additional reporting by Lee Hsin-fang
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