[EDITORIALS]No votes for political blacklist

The Citizens’ Coalition for the 2004 General Election released a list of 66 lawmakers it said it considered unfit to run in the legislative elections. We have no intention of criticizing the civic group for making the blacklist public or the reasons the group picked these particular candidates. They were trying to educate the public.
Because of growing public distrust in politics, the people crave information other than that the political parties themselves provide.
The coalition was formed by 200 civic groups, and thus should be a good cross-section of our society. To be seen as unbiased, it should not lean toward one end of the political spectrum and its standards should be consistent. The list of its first 66 “unfit” candidates, though, seems to fall short in those areas.
The selection was unfair, first of all. If the coalition wanted to criticize so-called “migratory” politicians who switch their party affiliations frequently, they should have listed all of the legislators who have done so in the past. Leaving the Millennium Democratic Party to join Our Open Party could be called inevitable because the party itself was splitting. Why were the five lawmakers who left the Grand National Party last year to join Our Open Party not on the list? The coalition said it had listed politicians who switched political parties habitually, but that explanation was not convincing.
Those who defected from the Millennium Democratic Party in November 2002 and then returned to the party a few days later were blacklisted for doing so. The coalition said the lawmakers were protesting the results of the presidential primary elections. Those lawmakers were not candidates in the primaries; they were displeased about the presidential candidate of the party and left.
The coalition listed some politicians for ideological criticism, which we think is a double standard. Why is it acceptable to label someone an “idiotic conservative” but wrong to call this administration “left-wing”? It blacklisted politicians for opposing the abolition of the male-centric family registration system, and such standards would seem to encourage politicians to vote the polls, not their beliefs.
Voters be warned: Both truth and falsehoods are out there.