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.
TRICKED INTO MOVING: Local governments in China do not offer any help, and Taiwanese there must compete with Chinese in an unfamiliar setting, a researcher said Beijing’s incentives for Taiwanese businesspeople to invest in China are only intended to lure them across the Taiwan Strait, after which they receive no real support, an expert said on Sunday. Over the past few years, Beijing has been offering a number of incentives that “benefit Taiwanese in name, while benefiting China in reality,” a cross-strait affairs expert said on condition of anonymity. Strategies such as the “31 incentives” are intended to lure Taiwanese talent, capital and technology to help address China’s economic issues while also furthering its “united front” efforts, they said. Local governments in China do not offer much practical
Police have detained a Taoyuan couple suspected of over the past two months colluding with human trafficking rings and employment scammers in Southeast Asia to send nearly 100 Taiwanese jobseekers to Cambodia. At a media briefing in Taipei yesterday, the Criminal Investigation Bureau presented items seized from the couple, including alleged victims’ passports, forged COVID-19 vaccination records, mobile phones, bank documents, checks and cash. The man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and his girlfriend, surnamed Tsan (詹), were taken into custody last month, after police at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport stopped four jobseekers from boarding a flight to Phnom Penh, said Dustin Lee (李泱輯),
PUBLIC POLL: More than half believe Chinese drills would make Taiwanese less willing to unify with China, while 36 percent said an invasion was highly unlikely Half of Taiwanese support independence, according to the results of a poll released yesterday by the Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation, which also found that President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) support rating fell by 7 percentage points. Fifty percent of respondents supported independence, 25.7 percent supported maintaining the “status quo” and 11.8 percent supported unification, while 12.1 percent had no opinion, did not know or refused to answer, the foundation said. Support for independence is the new mainstream opinion, regardless of which party is in power, foundation chairman Michael You (游盈隆) said. Insinuations that Taiwan wants to maintain the “status quo” are a fabrication that
BILINGUAL PLAN: The 17 educators were recruited under a program that seeks to empower Taiwanese, the envoy to the Philippines said The Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in the Philippines on Thursday hosted a send-off event for the first group of English-language teachers from the country who were recruited for a Ministry of Education-initiated program to advance bilingual education in Taiwan. The 14 teachers and three teaching assistants are part of the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which aims to help find English-language instructors for Taiwan’s public elementary and junior-high schools, the office said. Seventy-seven teachers and 11 teaching assistants from the Philippines have been hired to teach in Taiwan in the coming school year, office data showed. Among the first group is 57-year-old
RSS