President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) Facebook posts have misled voters by distorting the appeals of two questions in today’s referendum, the initiators of the questions said yesterday.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lin Wei-chou (林為洲) initiated a referendum calling for a ban to be reinstated on imports of pork containing traces of ractopamine, while Rescue Datan’s Algal Reefs Alliance convener Pan Chong-cheng (潘忠政) initiated a referendum to move a natural gas terminal project from offshore of Taoyuan’s Guanyin District (觀音).
The Facebook posts said: “To stop building the third liquefied natural gas plant,” but the referendum question, and his goal, was not to stop construction, but to relocate it, Pan said.
Photo: Chen Chih-chu, Taipei Times
“There is a big difference,” Pan said, adding that those who support the referendum have never opposed the government’s energy transition policies.
We should base our arguments on facts and let the people decide, but the president instead chose blatant slander to help her party, Pan told a news conference in Taipei alongside Lin.
Pan said that opponents of the four referendums calling themselves “the Taiwan team” was ludicrous.
“What does that make us?” he asked. “Should people who have differing opinions be seen as comrades of the Chinese Communist Party?”
Tsai is fomenting conflict and confrontation, contradicting her call for Taiwanese to end conflict with each other, but engage in dialogue, Pan said.
Taiwan People’s Party Legislator Tsai Pi-ju (蔡璧如) told the news conference that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was spreading misinformation and views the 7,600-year-old reefs as nothing but bits of stone.
The DPP has gone as far as saying that the structures are not algal reefs, despite CPC Corp, Taiwan’s environmental assessment report saying “algal reefs,” she said.
The DPP has fallen so far that it is willing to forgo scientific facts, she added.
Lin said that the referendum to ban pork with traces of ractopamine clearly asks whether people agree that a general ban should be put on such products.
There is no mention of the US in the question, yet Tsai’s Facebook page describes the referendum as “anti-US pork.”
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