Referendums Galore - 2018 Municipal Elections

With the referendum act amended, now it’s relatively much easier to put a referendum on the ballot, and getting it past the percentage of eligible voters limit.

It’s a blessing and a curse all at once. Good thing is now Taiwanese really get to decide the direction of future policies. Bad thing is now there’s a crap-ton of them.

For the upcoming 2018 election, there are 10 referendums. Since there had been 6 failed referendums in the past, these new referendums are labelled from 7 to 16.

They fall into 4 categories:

Attempts to Revive Nuclear Power Plant 4:
No. 7: KMT - Anti air pollution referendum
Do you agree to annually reduce fossil fuel power output?

No. 8: KMT - Anti Shenau coal power plant referendum
Do you agree to terminate the construction of new or expansion of existing coal power plants?

No. 9: KMT - Anti importation of radiated food referendum
Do you agree to ban importation of food from Japan’s Fukushima disaster areas?

No. 16: Huang Shixiu (KMT think-tank) - Use nuclear power to transition into green energy referendum
Do you agree to not abolish nuclear power before green energy is a reliable and viable option?

These 4 referendums are all from the KMT. They are phrased in such a way to pretend to be about pollution, while aiming to achieve the goal of reviving the poorly designed nuclear power plant 4. By the way, it was President Ma who put an end to nuclear power plant 4, when it became obvious that it was poorly designed and constructed with Taiwan’s utmost Zhabudou spirit.

Attempt to Make Clear Taiwan’s Desire for Independence to the International Community:

No. 13: Chi Cheng (Olympic Bronze Metalist) - Name correction for the Tokyo Olympics referendum
Do you agree to use Taiwan as the full title in all future international sporting events?

Attempt to block marriage equality:
No. 10: Coalition for the Happiness of our Next Generation - Marriage definition referendum
Do you agree to rule out protection of same sex-marriage in civil law?

No. 11: Coalition for the Happiness of our Next Generation - Age appropriate sexual orientation education referendum
Do you agree to prohibit education on same-sex sexual orientation for elementary and middle school students?

No. 12: Coalition for the Happiness of our Next Generation - Separate and specific law to guarantee the rights of same-sex marriage referendum
Do you agree to have a separate and specific law to guarantee the rights of same-sex marriage

The 3 referendums in this category are all from the Coalition for the Happiness of our Next Generation. No. 10 aims to block same sex marriage all together. No. 11 wants to prevent equal rights education in classrooms, and in case No. 10 fails, No. 12 aims to keep the current civil law for marriage unchanged, and essentially relegate same sex marriage to civil union status.

Attempt to promote marriage equality:
No. 14: Marriage Equality Action Group - Marriage equality referendum
Do you agree that the civil law should guarantee the status of same sex marriage?

No. 15: Marriage Equality Action Group - Sexual orientation education referendum
Do you agree to have equal sexual orientation education, including same-sex equality, in elementary and middle school curriculum?

The two referendums started by Marriage Equality Action Group want to promote equality education and amend current marriage laws in the civil code to include same sex marriage.

On voting day, voters will first cast votes for the elected representatives, then vote for the referendums.

There will be 3 boxes for the referendums. Voters have to cast referendum 7, 8, 9 into the first box, number 10, 11, 12 into the second box, and finally 13, 14, 15, 16 into the third box.

That’s all 10… Writing this certainly helped me clear things up. Hopefully it would be of help to others as well.

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What is the polling like for these measures so far?

Regarding this, basically all the athletes I know from our national teams are against it, because the Olympic Committee has clearly stated that it may consider removing Taiwan from the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. I’m sure many of them support the idea in theory, but the cost/benefit of doing so before the Olympics seems questionable.

People should all cast the vote based on how they feel about the actual issue. It’s up to the president and the related organizations to determine what to do once the result comes out.

While it would suck for the athletes to be barred from the Olympics, it sucks even more that practising democracy can get our team removed from the Olympic Committee.

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It’s not hard to see the implications of the other three, but what’s the concept with this one?

Zhabudou

:slight_smile:

By the way, I’ve read up on No. 13, and if it passes, all that will happen is the government would request Taiwan’s Olympic Committee, which is supposedly a non-government organization, to submit a name change to the IOC.

Submitting for a name change is not uncommon from NOC to IOC, and the worse that could happen is for IOC to decline the request.

China is terrified that referendum 13 would pass because that would send a strong message internationally. I would be in favor of it even if there is a chance for IOC to remove Taiwan from the 2020 Olympics.

Remember that 2020 is held in Japan of all places. If the IOC not only turns down Taiwan’s request for a name change, but removes Taiwan from the event without a good reason, for simply practising democracy, the IOC would face intense international pressure, especially from the host country.

Frankly, there’s no better time to do this than right now.

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I’m aware of the pros & cons, unfortunately I’ve spent too much team with the volleyball teams to be unbiased regarding this issue. They all want to go to Tokyo and see this referendum as something that could ruin everything they’ve worked for all these years. Considering that the Olympics are held every 4 years, skipping 2020 would mean for many of them to never attend an Olympic event due to age. This sentiment of course is shared by people from other sports as well, I’m just more familiar with the volleyball players.

On a political level, basically everyone agrees that the old agreement of using the name “Chinese Taipei” is silly because everyone just says “Taiwan”. When I was at the Asian games our team used to be introduced as “Chinese Taipei” than all broadcasters would just refer to it as “Taiwan” all the time.

We all know china is having a major aneurysm about this (last year they left almost all their athletes at home for the Universiade because they were too butthurt about the event being held in Taiwan), and I doubt that Ioc would be willing to jeopardize their relation$hip with china over Taiwan’s name, and in a similar way I seriously doubt other countries would do anything about it on a practical level.

The worst case scenario would be: the referendum passes, is presented to the Ioc, they decline it and remove Taiwan from the Olympics in Tokyo (and who knows what happens next)

Best case scenario: we change the logo on our shirts

I understand the significance of the issue, but I’d prefer to make sure this doesn’t impact the career and well being of all our athletes.

The information I get is that the worse case scenario is that IOC would decline the request, and Taiwan would attend the games under Chinese Taipei again.

What would be the basis for the IOC to remove Taiwan for requesting a name change when they can simply decline the request to begin with?

Unless Taiwan refuses to participate under the name Chinese Taipei, there is no reason why the athletes won’t be able to compete.

In the unlikely event that the IOC does bend to Chinese pressure and comes up with a far fetched reason to remove Taiwan, the athletes can still participate under under the Olympic flag or a neutral flag like what the Russian athletes did when the Russian NOC got removed for systematic doping conspiracy.

I have no idea. The fact is Taiwan actually has a ban on food products from Fukushima, Ibaraki, Gunma, Tochigi, and Chiba. So the referendum would simply forbid removing the current ban.

Japan wishes to replace the ban based on location to a ban based on the risk of of radioactive contamination, and voiced dismay over KMT’s referendum.

So this one might not have anything to do with restarting Nuclear power plant 4, but is just a middle finger to Japan, and fearmongering.

because of china’s butthurt. I mean, that would not be their official explanation, but it would be the real one, and it’s the thing that athletes are worried about.

As stated before, absolute worst case:

Former national team volleyball player Huang Pei-Hung voiced his support for yes on No. 13.

In his heart felt facebook post, he also made clear that Taiwan will only violate the Agreement between the International Olympic Committee, Lausanne and the Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee, Taipei if Taiwan declared name change unilaterally.

No. 13 aims to garner support to submit for a name change through official channels, not unilaterally change the team’s name.

If there is no violation of the treaty, there is absolutely no basis for IOC to remove Taiwan’s NOC from 2020.

By the way, voting age for referendum has been lowered to 18. So if someone is 18 but not yet 20, they can get the referendum tickets, but not the ballots for elected officials.

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Great thread. Thank you hansioux for your efforts here!

If some folks are interested in the (deliberate) confusion over the same-sex marriage questions, here’s an interesting recent report from New York’s legendary Stonewall Inn about this situation and what to do about it:

Guy

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Love you, man, but, uhhhh…referenda???

I like the guy, but he’s as involved in it as me. Actually, I’m more involved in #13 than him, because he’ll have nothing to do with the Olympics regardless of the outcome, while if the Taiwanese association will have problems joining Tokyo 2020 it will lower my chances of going there for work

oh yeah, that’s the plural for referendum…

here’s my little effort to contribute to the regularize the plural form of referendum in another couple decades.

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Amongst the dumbest decisions this administration has made, and that’s saying a lot.

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At least you are honest about how you evaluate questions of national importance.

It was to emphasize the fact that guy has literally nothing to lose. He’ll still have the “Taiwan Excellence” logo on the shirt if his team, he has nothing to lose from this.
Most of the players who are still in the national team, as well as one coaches, don’t agree with him at all.

The Olympics stuff is a waste of fucking time.
They are never going to get it changed and they risk losing the accreditation they have already in the small chance that they actually kick up a stink and submit an official request to change the name.
If you don’t want to go as Chinese Taipei then dont go. Two hoots will be given by absolutely nobody except Taiwanese people.

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