The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday voted down the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus’ motion to give a second reading to a bill to amend the Referendum Act (公民投票法), proposed by a KMT lawmaker who said his version is based on a previous proposal by the DPP.
KMT legislative caucus convener Sufin Siluko (廖國棟) yesterday morning said that the KMT would propose to give the bill a second reading, adding that the party had to seek alternatives due to the legislature’s Internal Administration Committee dragging its feet.
Sufin said that if the bill was passed yesterday, a referendum on lifting the ban on imports of food products produced in Japanese prefectures surrounding the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant could be held in the second half of next year.
Photo: Lin Cheng-kung, Taipei Times
The announcement came after KMT Vice Chairman Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) launched a campaign calling for a referendum to ask the public whether it supports a proposal to ease the nation’s ban on imports from the five Japanese prefectures.
The government had been rumored to consider lifting the bans on food imports from Fukushima Prefecture, reportedly due to political pressure.
The proposed amendment, motioned by KMT Legislator Alex Fai (費鴻泰), seeks to lower the signature threshold from 0.5 percent to 0.01 percent of the electorate to initiate a referendum proposal, lower the threshold to put a referendum proposal to a vote from 5 percent to 1 percent of the electorate and deciding on the outcome of the vote by a simple majority among more than a quarter of the electorate.
The lowering of the thresholds has also been the DPP’s and the New Power Party’s aim, but Fai’s version also proposes to have a referendum proposal initiated with the signatures of at least a quarter of the 113 lawmakers, which could be achieved with the KMT’s 35 seats at the legislature.
The DPP and the People First Party (PFP) legislative caucuses both voted down the KMT’s proposal.
DPP legislative caucus whip Wu Ping-jui (吳秉叡) said that the party, while in favor of lowering the referendum threshold, wanted the draft amendments to be reviewed by the committee first.
DPP caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) said “a quarter of lawmakers” means the KMT caucus, which is less than one-third of the total, would be able to initiate a referendum proposal whenever it wants, “which would only give way to chaos.”
PFP legislative caucus convener Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) said the party is against the proposal, as lowering the threshold would make referendums easy to hold and could lead to a waste of public resources as well as hampering governmental efficiency.
Committee convener Chao Tien-lin (趙天麟) said the committee had made plans to review the draft amendments this month at the latest, adding that the DPP should not put emphasis on the KMT’s proposal.
It is probably a side effect of the KMT’s infighting over the party chairperson election in July next year, Chao said.
Additional Reporting by Alison Hsiao
UNITED: The premier said Trump’s tariff comments provided a great opportunity for the private and public sectors to come together to maintain the nation’s chip advantage The government is considering ways to assist the nation’s semiconductor industry or hosting collaborative projects with the private sector after US President Donald Trump threatened to impose a 100 percent tariff on chips exported to the US, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday. Trump on Monday told Republican members of the US Congress about plans to impose sweeping tariffs on semiconductors, steel, aluminum, copper and pharmaceuticals “in the very near future.” “It’s time for the United States to return to the system that made us richer and more powerful than ever before,” Trump said at the Republican Issues Conference in Miami, Florida. “They
GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY: Taiwan must capitalize on the shock waves DeepSeek has sent through US markets to show it is a tech partner of Washington, a researcher said China’s reported breakthrough in artificial intelligence (AI) would prompt the US to seek a stronger alliance with Taiwan and Japan to secure its technological superiority, a Taiwanese researcher said yesterday. The launch of low-cost AI model DeepSeek (深度求索) on Monday sent US tech stocks tumbling, with chipmaker Nvidia Corp losing 16 percent of its value and the NASDAQ falling 612.46 points, or 3.07 percent, to close at 19,341.84 points. On the same day, the Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Sector index dropped 488.7 points, or 9.15 percent, to close at 4,853.24 points. The launch of the Chinese chatbot proves that a competitor can
TAIWAN DEFENSE: The initiative would involve integrating various systems in a fast-paced manner through the use of common software to obstruct a Chinese invasion The first tranche of the US Navy’s “Replicator” initiative aimed at obstructing a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be ready by August, a US Naval Institute (USNI) News report on Tuesday said. The initiative is part of a larger defense strategy for Taiwan, and would involve launching thousands of uncrewed submarines, surface vessels and aerial vehicles around Taiwan to buy the nation and its partners time to assemble a response. The plan was first made public by the Washington Post in June last year, when it cited comments by US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue
MARITIME SECURITY: Of the 52 vessels, 15 were rated a ‘threat’ for various reasons, including the amount of time they spent loitering near subsea cables, the CGA said Taiwan has identified 52 “suspicious” Chinese-owned ships flying flags of convenience that require close monitoring if detected near the nation, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday, as the nation seeks to protect its subsea telecoms cables. The stricter regime comes after a Cameroon-flagged vessel was briefly detained by the CGA earlier this month on suspicion of damaging an international cable northeast of Taiwan. The vessel is owned by a Hong Kong-registered company with a Chinese address given for its only listed director, the CGA said previously. Taiwan fears China could sever its communication links as part of an attempt
RSS