What a gunslinger does at a poker game

What a gunslinger does at a poker game

Stroll a Taipei shopping district, and you’ll get flyers by the dozens forced into your hands by part-timers. All they want is to get you into their stores to buy whatever discounted goodies they advertise.

There’s little difference between that tactic of storeowners and President Chen Shui-bian’s insistence on a one-stop distribution of blank ballots in the forthcoming legislative elections. He wants voters to receive all four ballots at one stop, making it extremely hard, if not impossible, to abstain from voting on a referendum he has proposed to recover what he calls “ill-gotten” assets of the Kuomintang. Of course, the same distribution rule will apply in the presidential election, alongside which his most controversy-ridden referendum on Taiwan’s admission to the United Nations as Taiwan will be held.

Voters will go to the polls on next January 12 to elect a new Legislative Yuan. They will elect their new president ten weeks later on March 22 to replace Chen. He has to bow out on May 20.

President Chen knows full well only the one-stop distribution of ballots may get more than half of the electorate to take part in the referendums. To be valid, a referendum has to be voted on by an absolute majority of the eligible voters. His two referendums, called together with the presidential election of 2004, were invalidated because more than half of the voters refused to receive the ballots. According to the election law, those ballots issued count toward the half-electorate quota, even if they are not cast. Six out of every ten voters will vote in either of next year’s two elections; and if they all are compelled to receive referendum ballots at one stop in each of the polling stations, the president’s referendums will be valid. He doesn’t care whether the referendums will be adopted. All he cares is the referendums are valid. Incidentally, a single majority of the valid votes cast passes a referendum.

The opposition Kuomintang doesn’t want the referendums passed, albeit it has also initiated two, one against government corruption and the other on the Republic of China’s return to the United Nations in that name. So the party has required the local election commissions in all 18 counties and cities, including Taipei, under its control to adopt a two-stop distribution of ballots for the elections and the referendums. A voter will receive two ballots for the January 12 elections at one stop, mark and cast them, and then go to the second stop to repeat the process.

That gives him a chance to stay away from the second poll, one for the referendums.

Of course, all four referendums shouldn’t be scheduled in the first place. But the Central Election Commission, under pressure from the president, had to order the conduct of all of them at the same time with the elections and established the one-stop ballot distribution rule. The two-stop distribution was effected in 2004.

But the flyer-distribution approach offers no guarantee that President Chen can make his ruling Democratic Progressive Party beat the Kuomintang at the polls. Then a golden opportunity presented itself. The stubborn defiance by the 18 local commissions of the one-stop rule has given him an excuse to play gunslinger at a poker game in a Western movie.

Movie-goers have seen many a gunman play stud poker. His first card is dealt facedown, with the other four faceup. In a battle royal, he tries to bluff his opponent. But if he knows he is sure to be beaten, he overturns the poker table forcing all the 10 cards falling on the floor of a canteen. His gun-toting pals will create a melee, and he rakes in all the anted money.

Chen may have some disturbances created at polling stations. His hardcore supporters are more than willing to oblige by insisting on getting all ballots at one stop in the 18 cities and counties, whose residents account for nearly two thirds of Taiwan’s population. Each station is guarded by two policemen at most. If there are a score voters demanding the one-stop distribution, the guards will have no way of controlling them. Should free-for-alls take place at a third of all polling stations, the CEC is entitled to declare the parliamentary elections invalid and announce another round of elections.

The current Legislative Yuan has to dissolve on January 31. The new legislature must be sworn in February 1. But the new parliamentary elections can’t take place in a mere 19 days! The one certain result is that the Legislative Yuan will follow in the footsteps of the Control Yuan, which has ceased to function for two years.

Enter President Chen. He takes center stage by issuing emergency decrees, which, according to the Constitution, have to be ratified by the Legislative Yuan within ten days of issuance. With the nation’s highest legislative organ ceasing to function, he may do what he wishes and, if there is opposition, may call it a rebellion and declare martial law. And there is no Legislative Yuan to deem it necessary to request the president to terminate martial law in accordance with the Constitution.

President Chen has vowed not to declare martial law during the rest of his second and last term. His promises, however, have seldom been kept. Besides, he will have a good alibi this time. He has a rebellion on his hands, which requires the enforcement of martial law. He will then be free to have a new constitution of a republic of Taiwan adopted and run for president and win.

To force the president to rewrite that scenario, the Kuomintang has only one option: To accept the one-stop distribution of ballots and urge all its supporters to refuse to receive referendum ballots in the first elections in the New Year. It must sacrifice its anti-corruption referendum for ensuring its retention of the majority in the new Legislative Yuan. Without the majority in parliament, the opposition party cannot prevent the president from marching onward toward independence of Taiwan to trigger an invasion from China in the process.

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