December’s referendums are a vote on livelihood issues, not a squabble between political parties, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said yesterday.
The KMT-endorsed propositions are to ban imports of pork containing the leanness-enhancing additive ractopamine and to hold referendums alongside national elections, Chu said at a lecture hosted by the KMT-affiliated Institute of Revolutionary Practice in Yunlin.
The KMT believes the propositions will protect public health and ensure that the rights of all Taiwanese are respected, he said.
The other two referendums on relocating a natural gas terminal to protect algal reefs off Taoyuan’s Guanyin District (觀音) and activating the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei’s Gongliao District (貢寮) originated outside the party, he said.
The party respects the right of civic groups to be heard and would help them promote their causes, Chu said.
When asked about comments he made in his time as New Taipei City mayor that nuclear power is not viable, as Taiwan does not have the capability to dispose of nuclear waste, Chu said that the central government should not punt the issue of nuclear safety to local governments.
The referendum system is meant to empower the people, and the proposals were mostly initiated by private citizens and civic groups, Chu said, adding that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is “blindly opposing the propositions out of political self-interest.”
Separately, the KMT fired back at Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌), who accused Chu of flip-flopping on nuclear power.
Chu’s position has always been to promote nuclear safety without jeopardizing Taiwan’s power supply, KMT Culture and Communications Committee director-general Ling Tao (凌濤) said in response to Su’s comments at a legislative session earlier yesterday.
“Su’s comments are a malicious distortion of Chu’s position, which has been consistent throughout the years,” Ling said.
The DPP should accept responsibility for power outages on May 13 and 17, and July 27, he said, adding that the outages tested the confidence of Taiwanese enterprises and inconvenienced the public.
The government’s dependence on coal-fired power plants has harmed public health and taken the nation further from the international effort to fight climate change, he said.
“The government did not improve the economy, livelihoods or environmental sustainability — failures for which any politician except Su would have resigned,” Ling said. “The public knows how little credibility Su has to cast aspersions.”
Additional reporting by Shih Hsiao-kuang
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