Court orders ballot boxes sealed ahead of possible Taiwan recount

Asian Political News, March 22, 2004

TAIPEI, March 21 Kyodo

The Taiwan High Court ordered Sunday that all ballot boxes be sealed ahead of a possible recount of the more than 13,250,000 votes cast in Saturday's presidential election.

Incumbent Chen Shui-bian eked out a less than 30,000-vote plurality in the balloting to win his second term as Taiwan's president.

But challenger Lien Chan of the Nationalist Party has called for a recount in the closely fought election, which Lien charges may have been marred by irregularities.

Chen and his running mate, Vice President Annette Lu, were both slightly wounded in a shooting incident less than a day before Taiwan's voters went to the polls, and Lien's supporters suggest that so far unexplained incident may have tipped the balance in the president's favor through sympathy votes.

Thousands of Lien's supporters gathered Sunday in Taipei and around the presidential office to demand a recount.

So far, the court has not ruled on whether a recount is needed, but it did order the ballot boxes sealed to prevent any question of fraud if a recount is required.

The Central Election Commission declared Chen of the Democratic Progressive Party the winner in Saturday's election and said it could not order a recount itself because only a court can make that decision.

Lien's supporters have cited the shooting incident, unspecified irregularities and a large number of spoiled ballots as among their reasons for seeking the recount.

More than 330,000 votes were declared invalid by the election commission, but some analysts suggested the large number of spoiled ballots may simply be because some who supported neither candidate in the voting had urged people to leave their ballots blank to show their dissatisfaction with both Chen and Lien.

While Chen emerged victorious in the election, his support for an island-wide referendum on whether people support an increase in antimissile defenses to counter China's missiles arrayed across the Taiwan Strait and on whether they want the government to pursue better ties with China both failed.

Less than half those who voted in the presidential election even bothered to cast ballots in the referendum, leaving the election commission to declare the exercise void and for pundits to wonder if Taiwan's voters are really interested in expressing direct opinions on national policies via the ballot box.

A decision on a possible recount in the presidential vote is not expected soon.