Leaders of last year’s Sunflower movement yesterday called on the public to support their demands for direct democracy by taking part in a large rally scheduled for April 10.
The date marks the one-year anniversary of the Sunflower movement’s retreat — when student-led protesters made their exit from the Legislative Yuan’s main chamber, after occupying the building for nearly 23 days in protest against the government’s handling of a proposed cross-strait service trade agreement.
Organizers of the rally — called Power to the People — said the event would highlight their demands to reform the nation’s laws on referendums and recall procedures, which they see as two keystones in ensuring that members of the public have a say in politics.
Photo: Lo Pei-der, Taipei Times
They emphasized the importance of direct, participatory policymaking as a way to “correct problems inherent in representative politics,” adding that events leading up to the Sunflower movement clearly illustrated the failure of legislators to represent the will of the people.
Sunflower movement co-leader and Taiwan March convener Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆) told a news conference in Taipei that the rally would be a continuation of the ideals expressed during the Sunflower movement.
“Following our retreat last year, many people questioned whether it was the end of the Sunflower movement. However, over the past year, we have seen the hard work and effort put into demands for direct democracy,” Lin said.
Critics of the Referendum Act (公民投票法) have long argued that the act’s turnout threshold of 50 percent for a referendum to be declared valid is largely unattainable.
The petition threshold for recall referendums — which requires the signatures of 13 percent of eligible voters in a given constituency within 30 days — has also been described as “ridiculously high” in comparison with most other countries.
Appendectomy Project spokesperson Mr Lin From Taipei (台北林先生) said that the public should be able to exercise their constitutional rights in recalling inept politicians, adding that recall efforts should be considered to be just as important as elections.
“Although the right to recall politicians was written into our constitution more than 70 years ago, we have never successfully recalled any government official,” Lin said.
On March 18, the organizers are set to hold a smaller parade around the Legislative Yuan compound, coinciding with the day when protesters first swarmed the legislature’s main chamber last year.
TENSIONS: The Chinese aircraft and vessels were headed toward the western Pacific to take part in a joint air and sea military exercise, the Ministry of National Defense said A relatively large number of Chinese military aircraft and vessels were detected in Taiwan’s vicinity yesterday morning, apparently en route to a Chinese military exercise in the western Pacific, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. In a statement, the ministry said 36 Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft, including J-16 fighters and nuclear-capable H-6 bombers, crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait or an extension of it, and were detected in the southern and southeastern parts of Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) from 5:20am to 9:30am yesterday. They were headed toward the western Pacific to take part in a
Honor guards are to stop performing changing of the guard ceremonies around a statue of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) to avoid “worshiping authoritarianism,” the Ministry of Culture said yesterday. The fate of the bronze statue has long been the subject of fierce and polarizing debate in Taiwan, which has transformed from an autocracy under Chiang into one of Asia’s most vibrant democracies. The changing of the guard each hour at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei is a major tourist attraction, but starting from 9am on Monday, the ceremony is to be moved outdoors to Democracy Boulevard, outside the eponymous blue-and-white memorial
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) supports peaceful unification with China, and President William Lai (賴清德) is “a bit naive” for being a “practical worker for Taiwanese independence,” former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said in an interview published yesterday. Asked about whether the KMT is on the same page as the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) on the issue of Taiwanese independence or unification with China, Ma told the Malaysian Chinese-language newspaper Sin Chew Daily that they are not. While the KMT supports peaceful unification and is against unification by force, the DPP opposes unification as such and
CASES SLOWING: Although weekly COVID-19 cases are rising, the growth rate has been falling, from 90 percent to 30 percent, 14 percent and 6 percent, the CDC said COVID-19 hospitalizations last week rose 6 percent to 987, while deaths soared 55 percent to 99, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, adding that the recent wave of infections would likely peak this week. People aged 65 or older accounted for 79 percent of the hospitalizations and 90 percent of the deaths, the majority of whom have or had underlying health conditions, CDC data showed. The youngest hospitalized case last week was a six-month-old, who was born preterm and was unvaccinated, CDC physician Lin Yung-ching (林詠青) said. The infant had a fever, coughing and a runny nose early this month, but