Guard Against Extending of CEC’s “Trickery” into the Elections

 Guard Against Extending of CEC’s “Trickery” into the Elections

United Daily News Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)

November 22, 2018

 Translation of an Excerpt

Even before the controversy over the illegal promulgation of plebiscite election bulletins by the Central Election Commission (CEC) was over, another tempest occurred. In Chiayi County, electoral staffers attempted to take newly printed blank ballots out of the printing plant; over 300 blank ballots were nearly smuggled out. The CEC, which should have played an independent and neutral role, this time elicited controversies in electoral operations, numbering the most in all these years; it could be said that "complete control of government, completely biased." Coincidentally, this time, the CEC has been shouldering the responsibility of the most complex electoral operations of "local elections combined with plebiscite elections"; whether the elections and the plebiscite elections would result in chaotic instances is something that worries the public.

The term of the incumbent CEC just completed a full year yesterday. In this year, the negative issues created by the CEC could only be described by the word "countless." Summing up the CEC’s acts, whether in excessive administrative discretion or illegal administrative dispositions, the commonality is "making assists for the DPP government to score." The CEC believes that as long as it is "politically correct" with its superiors, it couldn’t care less about any legal restrictions or institutional checks and balances.

Judging by the CEC’s various acts in the past year, it has been veritably conducting electoral "trickeries," attempting to be the hatchet man of the powers that be, and forestalling plebiscite proposals that would be detrimental to the ruling party’s decision making. As the CEC has the temerity to disregard the norms of laws and regulations, blatantly stretching its hand into plebiscite matters, the public cannot but be worried about its impartiality in carrying out the elections, or even undermining the fairness of the elections.

Now, we have entered the countdown by the hour to the time of casting and counting ballots; the entire populous are watching what other "trickeries" would emerge in these elections that would affect the electoral results. At this juncture, we call upon the CEC to be objective and neutral in carrying out the elections and plebiscite elections, and never engage in any biased or erroneous acts. We also remind the public everywhere to carefully monitor the casting and counting of ballots and all electoral staffers to refuse improper instructions; Taiwan’s democracy does not allow anyone to steal with despicable means.

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