Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

It is only March, but when Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) said a referendum on the fate of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in Gongliao District (貢寮), New Taipei City (新北市), could be postponed until the end of the year, he indicated that the war between pro-nuclear and anti-nuclear activists, as well as between political parties, could last for an entire year.

While that means the public would probably have to endure more mudslinging between the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), a delay could be a good thing, as the public would have more time to digest information and assess the pros and cons of the issue.

“Over the past few years, a number of academics have advocated deliberative democracy as a way to mitigate, through rational debate within a wider forum, any abuses of populist democracy. However, the emergence of referendums has only driven us further from this democratic ideal. The questions posed in these referendums ask voters, in a necessarily simplistic format, to either support or oppose a proposition, to the exclusion of any nuance, proviso, compromise, or amendment. Such subtleties are consequently not reflected in the participants’ responses.”

The above is not criticism leveled at Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) following his proposal of a referendum on the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in Gongliao District (貢寮), New Taipei City (新北市), but a criticism made by Jiang in 2004 of the nationwide consultative referendum proposed by then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and held on March 20 that year.