Taiwan mulls delaying 4 referendums as it fights Covid-19 outbreak

Central Election Commission to meet on Friday to assess whether holding the four polls in August is still possible
One of the votes concerns a ban on imported pork containing ractopamine, while another is on whether to reopen a nuclear power plant

Coronavirus pandemic

Lawrence Chungin Taipei

Published: 5:33pm, 29 Jun 2021

Why you can trust SCMP

Taiwan’s electoral authority is considering postponing four referendums supported by main opposition the Kuomintang in the face of a recent Covid-19 outbreak that on Tuesday brought 54 new infections and eight deaths.

The referendums are supposed to be held on August 28. Taiwanese will vote on putting the island’s suspended fourth nuclear power plant back into service, reinstating the recently lifted ban on importing pork containing the growth and leanness agent ractopamine, allowing future referendums to be held alongside major elections, and relocating a natural gas terminal from a proposed site off the northern Taiwan coast.

Since late April, the island has been battling a spike in coronavirus cases that in May prompted the authorities to raise the alert to level 3 of the island’s four-tier system and impose a soft lockdown, which has since been extended several times, the latest running until July 12.

The emergence of new clusters of infections in the southern county of Pingtung, this time attributed to the highly aggressive Delta variant, has threatened to further prolong the soft lockdown, with some medical experts predicting the outbreak will last for several more months.

02:04

Pig guts fly in Taiwan parliament protest over easing of restrictions on US pork imports

The 54 infections and eight deaths recorded on Tuesday took Taiwan’s totals since the pandemic began to 14,748 cases and 643 fatalities, according to the Central Epidemic Command Centre. The cases in Pingtung included 14 caused by the Delta variant, it said.

The Central Election Commission said that it needed to assess whether holding the four polls in August was still possible, and could make a decision on Friday.

“As the [command centre] has decided to extend the level 3 restriction to July 12, we need to discuss how such an extension would affect the holding of the four referendums [because] we need time to prepare for each stage of the electoral process before the public can go to vote,” a commission spokesman said on Tuesday.

The body had consulted the command centre and local election authorities, looked at how elections elsewhere were held despite the pandemic, and planned to hold a committee meeting about the matter on Friday, the spokesman said.

01:48

Thousands of protesters in Taiwan rally against imports of US pork with controversial additive

Under election rules, the commission needs to organise presentation or debating sessions between July 24 and August 21 to familiarise the public with the issues to be voted on. It also needs to complete the electoral roll by August 8, announce the number of eligible voters by August 24, stage the referendums on August 28 and announce the official results on September 3. The extension of the soft lockdown could affect each stage of this.

In a statement on Tuesday, the Kuomintang (KMT) said it would respect the decision of the election commission on whether to postpone the referendums, given that it was more important to focus on fighting the outbreak.

“But the authorities must in no way deprive the public rights to vote” by simply cancelling the referendums, and must state clearly whether the polls will proceed as scheduled after Friday’s meeting, the KMT said.

Regardless of whether the referendums could be held as planned, the government should be held responsible for not securing well in advance the delivery of enough vaccines to inoculate the public, it said. Only 8 per cent of the island’s 23.5 million people had been inoculated as of Tuesday.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Delay to referendums mulled amid virus outbreak

Post