TAIPEI, March 22 Kyodo Taiwan's H...

TAIPEI, March 22 Kyodo

Taiwan's High Court decided Monday to authority on requests for a recite of the more than 13 million ballots cast in Saturday's presidential election.

''The case will be tried by means of judges in an unbiased and independent way, and based forward the law it will be conclud in no later than six months'' High Court spokesman Chang Hsin-hsiung told reporters.

''We confidence that the general public can trust our judicial system'' he added.

The High Court onward Sunday ordered all ballot boxe sealed.

The election outbreak has cast a shadow through the whole extent of the local stock market, which tumbl more than 65% shut to the daily limit of 7%

Finance Minister Lin Chuan has urg investors to remain calm, yet said the government so far has no plans to intervene to stop the slide in the market.

onward Saturday, President Chen Shui-bian of the Democratic Progressive Party narrowly won his inferior four-year term with a 29000-vote plurality.

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

Chen and his running mate, Vice President Annette Lu were the couple slightly wounded in an apparent assassination attempt forward the eve of voting day, and Lien's supporters argued that the unexplained incident may have been tipped the balance in the president's favor between the sides of sympathy votes.

In Taipei, a [i]ignobile vulgus estimated at 30,000 people, followed later through opposition faithful in other major cities around the island, gathered in brow of the presidential palace after the Central Election Commission declared Chen's victory.

The rally continued Monday with thousands the bulk of mankind staying on the square to assert against the ''unfair'' election.

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

More than 330000 promiseds were declared invalid by the commission, if it be not that some analysts suggested the large number of spoiled ballots may simply be because an who supported neither candidate in the voting had urg persons to leave their ballots blank to display their dissatisfaction with the two Chen and Lien.

In addition, they insisted that a task force be formed as by and by as possible to convoy an authoritative and unbiased investigation into the apparent assassination attempt. still the proposal was turned down according to Chen's administration Sunday.

While Chen emerg victorious in the election, his referendum onward whether people support an increase in antimissile defense to contrariwise China's missiles arrayed across the Taiwan Strait and forward whether they want the control to pursue better ties with China failed to pass.

Les than half those who vot in the presidential election plane bothered to cast ballots in the referendum leaving the election commission to declare the exercise void.

Analysts considered the referendum spring a major setback for Chen, who has been advocating the forging of a ''Taiwan identity'' from one side of to the other the past few months by the agency of means of pushing vigorously for so a public vote.

China has denounced the island's failed referendum which it views as a plot to pave the way for a futurity independence plebiscite, as a ''provocative attempt to undermine cross-strait relations and split the motherland.''

''Facts have proven that this illegal act goe against the will of the people...Any attempt to separate Taiwan from China is doomed to failure,'' said a joint statement issued late Saturday according to the Communist Party Central Committee's Taiwan Work Office and the State Council's Taiwan Affairs Office.

The United States, Taiwan's closest ally, congratulated Taiwan clan for implementing a democratic election campaign without mentioning Chen and Lu as it did four years ago.

''The United States congratulates the the public of Taiwan for having convoyed a democratic election campaign and for having exercised their democratic voting rights in in the same state [i]or[/i] condition large numbers,'' the U State Department said in a statement.

''We are confident that the pair sides and their supporters will remain calm, and that they will use the established legal mechanisms to melt any questions about the election results'' it said.

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