The initiators of four Dec. 18 referendum questions yesterday accused the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government of contravening the principle of administrative neutrality by using public resources to influence the ballot initiatives.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators Lin Wei-chou (林為洲) and Johnny Chiang (江啟臣), nuclear power proponent Huang Shih-hsiu (黃士修) and environmentalist Pan Chong-cheng (潘忠政) made the remarks at a news conference in Taipei.
Lin initiated a referendum on banning the importation of pork containing traces of ractopamine, while Chiang proposed an item on holding referendums alongside elections. Huang spearheaded a question on activating the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Gongliao District (貢寮) and Pan initiated an item on relocating a natural gas terminal project to protect algal reefs off Taoyuan’s Guanyin District (觀音).
Photo: CNA
Lin pointed to several actions he said contravened administrative neutrality, such as state-owned CPC Corp, Taiwan and Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) last month buying advertisements in national newspapers opposing the initiative to relocate the liquefied natural gas project.
The Executive Yuan also advertised that pork products containing ractopamine are just as safe as beef products containing the animal-feed additive, he said.
Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) and President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) should not have used government travel funds or requested police protection to attend public events promoting “no” votes in the referendums, he added.
The Executive Yuan is not a person and therefore cannot be an opponent of the referendums, he said.
The Referendum Act (公民投票法) allows the government only to write opinion letters or policy statements, he said.
The DPP is “brainwashing” the country using taxpayers’ money to promote its positions, he said, adding that the government should rein in its conduct to make the referendums fair.
Pan said that the DPP is not being democratic in using administrative resources to fight the referendums, adding that Referendum Act is poorly written regarding contraventions of administrative neutrality.
The government can defend its policies being challenged by ballot initiatives, but it cannot resort to smears and personal attacks directed at the people who initiated the referendums, Huang said.
He added that Taipei City Councilor Miao Po-ya (苗博雅) of the DPP hosting an event about the referendums at National Taiwan University would “taint” university campuses with politics.
The Executive Yuan is not among the registered opponents of the referendums and government officials should limit their actions to writing opinion letters in accordance with the act, Chiang said.
Executive Yuan spokesman Lo Ping-cheng (羅秉成) said the Referendum Act and the Ministry of Civil Service’s interpretation of administrative neutrality indicate that the Executive Yuan can show opposition to referendum questions.
The government has an obligation to defend its policies that the referendums have called into question, he said, adding that Su had participated in public events related to the referendum as part of his government duty and responsibilities.
“There is no question that the government’s conduct is necessary, legitimate and legal,” he said.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS