Referendums and elections are totally different events.People elect a legislature or a government.They propose a measure and submit it to popular vote in referendum.
Now, the Central Election Commission is planning to hold altogether four referendums alongside two national elections early next year.Founded under the Executive Yuan or the Cabinet in 1982, the Commission is in charge of holding and supervising all elections, local as well as national.Two of the referendums, one against government corruption and the other for recovery of what are termed as ill-gotten property and assets of the opposition Kuomintang, will take place at the same time with the legislative elections scheduled for January 12.The other two, both for Taiwan’s accession to the United Nations, will be called when voters go to the polls to elect their new president on March 22.
The former two proposals make sense.Practically all the people are agreed that their government is quite corrupt and something has to be done about it.The latter are truly stupid, however.Everybody knows nothing is going to happen even when either or both of them are passed.The only rationale the ruling Democratic Progressive Party and the opposition Kuomintang offer for holding their respective proposals – their difference being the accession in the name of Taiwan or the Republic of China – is to make the whole world know the people’s determination to join that world body.As a matter of fact, almost all the world knows the people of Taiwan want their country to have UN membership.On the other hand, the DPP-sponsored referendum is strongly opposed by the United States and the People’s Republic of China.Beijing, in particular, considers it a move toward de jure independence, albeit no threat of invasion across the Taiwan Strait was issued.China has codified an automatic invasion through its anti-secession law, vowing to take Taiwan back to its fold if Taipei declares independence.
The highly partisan Commission, under pressure from the ruling party, met on Friday to decide how to get the four referendums hitched to the legislative and presidential elections.The Commission favored the controversial one-stop issuance of blank ballots for the elections and the referendums.That means a voter has to receive all the ballots at one desk in the polling station and cast them in two different ballot boxes.Commissioners appointed at the recommendation of the opposition parties objected to the one-stop plan on the grounds that it would create much more confusion than the two-stop issuance of blank ballots – a voter received ballots at two different desks – in the referendums held together with the presidential election of 2004.After a stormy session, Chang Cheng-hsiung, chairman of the Commission, deferred the decision and announced a public hearing might be held before another meeting is to be called to finalize how ballots should be received.
There is a third option the Commission does not want to consider.It can delink the referendums and the elections.The Referendum Law does not require the referendums to be held alongside elections.So, why not hold the referendums separately?We know the Commission has already decided to link the referendums with the elections.But that does not mean it cannot reverse its decision.
（本文刊載於96.10.29 China Post第4版，本文代表作者個人意見）
