President Chen Shui-bian (
The options are: implement martial law; invalidate the results of the pan-blue controlled authorities; replace local election commission heads, or get the CEC to delay the elections.
Chen made the comments after Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) earlier yesterday dismissed Chen warning on Saturday that election results in cities and counties that employ two-step voting could be annulled.
PHOTO: CNA
Ma said Chen's warning was not to be taken seriously, adding that Chen, as the nation's leader and a lawyer, should know that only the judicial system can annul the results of an election and that political parties may not seek to annul the results with the court.
"The president has no authority to declare election results invalid ... He was emotional at the time and we shouldn't take his words too seriously," Ma said while campaigning for KMT legislative candidates in Taipei.
Chen had said that the government could declare legislative election results invalid if any of the 18 pan-blue-governed city and county governments defy a Central Election Commission directive to use one-step voting in the January polls.
At issue is whether voters should receive ballots for the legislative elections and two referendums simultaneously (one-step voting), or in succession (two-step voting).
Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (
Ma defended the two-step voting process yesterday as a safer and less confusing option and said Chen -- who was reelected in 2004, when two-step voting was first employed -- shouldn't oppose two-step voting.
"President Chen benefited from two-step voting three years ago. How can he oppose the process now?" Ma said.
Ma said he was not worried about the pan-blue-governed cities and counties, which vowed to carry out two-step voting. He said 70 percent of the population would vote under these administrations, adding that the rest of Taiwan under pan-green local governments could see "chaos" because of the one-step voting system.
Hau yesterday stood firm on the city government's decision.
"The city government is simply doing what we should do. I think this incident has proved a great lesson in law and order for the people," he said.
Foreign tourists who purchase a seven-day Taiwan Pass are to get a second one free of charge as part of a government bid to boost tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. A pair of Taiwan Passes is priced at NT$5,000 (US$156.44), an agency staff member said, adding that the passes can be used separately. The pass can be used in many of Taiwan’s major cities and to travel to several tourist resorts. It expires seven days after it is first used. The pass is a three-in-one package covering the high-speed rail system, mass rapid transport (MRT) services and the Taiwan Tourist Shuttle services,
Drinking a lot of water or milk would not help a person who has ingested terbufos, a toxic chemical that has been identified as the likely cause of three deaths, a health expert said yesterday. An 83-year-old woman surnamed Tseng (曾) and two others died this week after eating millet dumplings with snails that Tseng had made. Tseng died on Tuesday and others ate the leftovers when they went to her home to mourn her death that evening. Twelve people became ill after eating the dumplings following Tseng’s death. Their symptoms included vomiting and convulsions. Six were hospitalized, with two of them
DIVA-READY: The city’s deadline for the repairs is one day before pop star Jody Chiang is to perform at the Taipei Dome for the city’s Double Ten National Day celebrations The Taipei City Government has asked Farglory Group (遠雄集團) to repair serious water leaks in the Taipei Dome before Friday next week, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said yesterday, following complaints that many areas at the stadium were leaking during two baseball games over the weekend. The dome on Saturday and Sunday hosted two games in tribute to CTBC Brothers’ star Chou Szu-chi (周思齊) ahead of his retirement from the CPBL. The games each attracted about 40,000 people, filling the stadium to capacity. However, amid heavy rain, many people reported water leaking on some seats, at the entrance and exit areas, and the
BIG collection: The herbarium holds more than 560,000 specimens, from the Japanese colonial period to the present, including the Wulai azalea, which is now extinct in the wild The largest collection of plant specimens in Taiwan, the Taipei Botanical Garden’s herbarium, is celebrating its 100th anniversary with an exhibition that opened on Friday. The herbarium provides critical historical documents for botanists and is the first of its kind in Taiwan, Taiwan Forestry Research Institute director Tseng Yen-hsueh (曾彥學) said. It is housed in a two-story red brick building, which opened during 1924. At the time, it stored 30,000 plant specimens from almost 6,000 species, including Taiwanese plant samples collected by Tomitaro Makino, the “father of Japanese botany,” Tseng said. The herbarium collection has grown in the century since its