The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) would support the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) in promoting amendments to the Referendum Act (公民投票法) in the next legislative session, KMT caucus secretary-general Wang Hung-wei (王鴻薇) said yesterday, after the opposition-supported nuclear power referendum failed to meet the threshold to pass.
Although 4.34 million people (21.7 percent of eligible voters) voted “yes,” while 1.51 million (7.5 percent) voted “no” in Saturday’s referendum to restart the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant, it failed to meet the threshold of affirmative votes from at least 25 percent of eligible voters, or 5,000,523. Voter turnout was 29.53 percent.
TPP Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) on Saturday night said the TPP would seek to revise the act to bind referendums to national elections, with the goal of garnering more votes in referendums.
Photo: CNA
Referendums used to be held along with national elections until the act was amended in 2017 to lower the threshold for initiating and passing referendums. That led to numerous referendum initiatives in 2018, resulting in long waits at polling stations and extra work for election staff.
The following year, the legislature — which at the time was led by a Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) majority — passed an amendment requiring referendums to be held biennially on the fourth Saturday of August, separate from presidential and legislative elections.
Huang said the DPP put referendums in a “birdcage.”
The key provisions of the TPP’s proposal would allow referendums to be held alongside national elections instead of biennially in the summer to make people more willing to vote, he said.
Despite failing to reach the threshold, the more than 4.3 million “yes” votes in Saturday’s referendum showed that the DPP must review its energy policy, he said.
A 2018 referendum to abolish a policy on phasing out nuclear energy by this year passed with 59.49 percent of participating voters casting ballots in favor of the measure, while on Saturday, 74.17 percent of participating voters supported the referendum, Huang said.
The result showed that using nuclear power has become a mainstream opinion in Taiwan, Huang said.
Wang said that last week’s referendum was only 650,000 votes short of meeting the one-quarter threshold.
That reflected Taiwanese public opinion, she said.
Given that the KMT has proposed related bills in previous legislative sessions, the party would support the TPP in proposing amendments to bind referendums to national elections, she said.
That would make referendums less prone to failure due to political maneuvering, she said.
Three Taiwanese airlines have prohibited passengers from packing Bluetooth earbuds and their charger cases in checked luggage. EVA Air and Uni Air said that Bluetooth earbuds and charger cases are categorized as portable electronic devices, which should be switched off if they are placed in checked luggage based on international aviation safety regulations. They must not be in standby or sleep mode. However, as charging would continue when earbuds are placed in the charger cases, which would contravene international aviation regulations, their cases must be carried as hand luggage, they said. Tigerair Taiwan said that earbud charger cases are equipped
Foreign travelers entering Taiwan on a short layover via Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport are receiving NT$600 gift vouchers from yesterday, the Tourism Administration said, adding that it hopes the incentive would boost tourism consumption at the airport. The program, which allows travelers holding non-Taiwan passports who enter the country during a layover of up to 24 hours to claim a voucher, aims to promote attractions at the airport, the agency said in a statement on Friday. To participate, travelers must sign up on the campaign Web site, the agency said. They can then present their passport and boarding pass for their connecting international
WEATHER Typhoon forming: CWA A tropical depression is expected to form into a typhoon as early as today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday, adding that the storm’s path remains uncertain. Before the weekend, it would move toward the Philippines, the agency said. Some time around Monday next week, it might reach a turning point, either veering north toward waters east of Taiwan or continuing westward across the Philippines, the CWA said. Meanwhile, the eye of Typhoon Kalmaegi was 1,310km south-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point, as of 2am yesterday, it said. The storm is forecast to move through central
Taiwan sweltered through its hottest October on record, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday, the latest in a string of global temperature records. The main island endured its highest average temperature since 1950, CWA forecaster Liu Pei-teng said. Temperatures the world over have soared in recent years as human-induced climate change contributes to ever more erratic weather patterns. Taiwan’s average temperature was 27.381°C as of Thursday, Liu said. Liu said the average could slip 0.1°C by the end of yesterday, but it would still be higher than the previous record of 27.009°C in 2016. "The temperature only started lowering around Oct. 18 or 19
RSS