KMT threatens arrests, election boycott

Tseng Yung-chuan (曾永權), executive director of the KMT's policy coordination department, held a press conference to announce that the KMT will ask mayors and county magistrates in Blue-controlled areas to boycott the Central Election Commission's decision to hand out ballots at the same time.

He will encourage those leaders to use the old system of handing out the ballots seperately to make voting harder.

Of course, the KMT says this change will actually make voting harder by increasing the chances of people placing their vote in the wrong box (an absurd argument, since the ballots already are dropped into the boxes at the same time. The new system would just make you wait in line one time less).

They also suspect the DPP has pushed this change to make it easier to commit voting fraud, another absurd argument giving the taping of the voting sites and counting procedure.

As far as I can see, the KMT has not yet actually tried to label the CEC's decision as illegal.

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Taipei mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) of the KMT has also said that DPP plans to run a torch parade led by President Chen through Taipei -- in imitation of the Olympics torch but to promote the UN bid -- is not going to be allowed unless the DPP properly applies for a permit to have road space.

The DPP argues that as a non-political activity, there is no need to go through the same application process and that the city government is overstepping its bounds.

More interestingly, to avoid conflict, the KMT's Taipei branch chief Pan Chia-sen (潘家森) seems to have held a press conference to announce the KMT chairman Wu Po-hsiung has approved Pan's plan of just giving the paraders the right to run from Kaidagelan Blvd to the CKS/Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall.

Apparently, Ma Ying-jeou knew nothing of that decision.

It looks like there's some infighting over this issue and, again, some murky legal waters.