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Amended declaration place all fourteen proposals on referendum

PALIKIR, Pohnpei (FSM Information Service): May 10, 2002 - An amended Declaration of Referendum has decided that the August 27th Referendum will be on all the Fourteen proposed amendments to the Constitution of the Federated States of Micronesia.

Signed on April 19, the amended Declaration of Referendum calls for all the proposed amendments adopted by the Third Constitutional Convention to be on the August Referendum instead of only two.

Among the reasons for the change, as noted in the amended Declaration, is the "excellent progress" made by the Constitutional Convention Task Force.

President Leo A. Falcam had in early March, activated a national Constitutional Convention Task Force to conduct public education on the proposed amendments to the FSM Constitution. After several weeks of intensive training in mid-March, the national task force was dispatched to the states where they trained their counterparts for their combined goal of educating the public on the proposed amendments.

The combined Task Force is now in the communities moving forward with its education. The amended Declaration referred to this forward progress and anticipates that the Task Force will have, "completed its educational program on all 14 proposed constitutional amendments prior to August 27, 2002, thereby removing the need to hold the referendum on the remaining 12 proposed amendments in March 2003 [..]"

The 14 proposed amendments to the FSM Constitution adopted by the Third Constitutional Convention are:

No. 01-1: to provide for a minimum of four justices for the FSM Supreme;
No. 01-2: to allow FSM citizens to hold dual citizenships;
No. 01-5: to establish state jurisdiction over land and water;
No. 01-7: to provide for full faith and credit among the States;
No. 01-8: to create the Office of the Independent Prosecutor;
No. 01-9: to provide allowance for former Presidents and Vice Presidents;
No. 01-11: to establish national educational standards and funding to support them;
No. 01-13: to provide for concurrent national and state power to levy a value-added tax;
No. 01-15: to change distributions of tax revenue between the National/State Governments;
No. 01-16: to increase Congress members and limit length of terms;
No. 01-21: to provide for the direct election of the President and the Vice President;
No. 01-24: to establish procedures for allocating foreign funds;
No. 01-25: to establish the number of votes required to pass Bills in congress;
No. 01-26: to establish the number of votes needed to override a Presidential Veto.

Details and analysis on these proposals and the proceedings of the Third Constitutional Convention can be found at www.fsmpio.fm.

The FSMPIO website also has available the applications for Absentee Ballots.