Students and netizens yesterday announced the official commencement of a campaign to recall three Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators.
The campaign, first proposed on March 25 on PTT — the nation’s largest academic online bulletin board — sought the recall of KMT lawmakers Lin Hung-chih (林鴻池), Wu Yu-sheng (吳育昇) and Alex Tsai (蔡正元) to, as stated in the original post, “reduce the advantages of the pan-blue majority” following an incident panned by the student-led Sunflower movement as the government’s “black-box” — opaque — handling of the cross-strait service trade agreement.
The campaign urged its supporters to print and fill out the petition included as an attachment and called for donations to support the appeal.
Campaign spokesperson Lin Tzu-yi (林祖儀) said the movement targeted Lin Hung-chih, Tsai and Wu because the three had received a large number of votes from netizens to be targeted for recall over the past month.
“Our supporters have been urging us to take it to the next step, which prompted the campaign’s commencement,” Lin Tzu-yi said, adding that the campaign management team would later publish its agenda and reasoning for the action.
In February, Wu was the target of a failed recall campaign initiated by the Constitution 133 Alliance, which said he had failed to serve the public interest and was President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) “yes-man.”
Despite the failure of the alliance’s recall bid, the management team of the campaign yesterday said it has learned many lessons from the alliance’s senior members, including its founder Neil Peng (馮光遠) and Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌), Lin Tzu-yi said.
When reached for comments, Tsai yesterday was dismissive of the campaign, saying: “Frivolous people do silly things.”
“I have no interest whatsoever in people who have no ability to pay their taxes or be productive,” he added.
Aside from saying that the campaign management team are “instigators,” Wu declined to comment.
Lin Hung-chih said he respected people’s right to initiate a recall, but added that a democratic society should be more respectful toward different opinions.
Legislators are being threatened with recall because of their opinions on certain policies rather than for being engaged in illegal activity, he said, adding that he doubted that the mentality of the campaign’s organizers was democratic.
The US government has signed defense cooperation agreements with Japan and the Philippines to boost the deterrence capabilities of countries in the first island chain, a report by the National Security Bureau (NSB) showed. The main countries on the first island chain include the two nations and Taiwan. The bureau is to present the report at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The US military has deployed Typhon missile systems to Japan’s Yamaguchi Prefecture and Zambales province in the Philippines during their joint military exercises. It has also installed NMESIS anti-ship systems in Japan’s Okinawa
‘WIN-WIN’: The Philippines, and central and eastern European countries are important potential drone cooperation partners, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung said Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) in an interview published yesterday confirmed that there are joint ventures between Taiwan and Poland in the drone industry. Lin made the remark in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper). The government-backed Taiwan Excellence Drone International Business Opportunities Alliance and the Polish Chamber of Unmanned Systems on Wednesday last week signed a memorandum of understanding in Poland to develop a “non-China” supply chain for drones and work together on key technologies. Asked if Taiwan prioritized Poland among central and eastern European countries in drone collaboration, Lin
ON ALERT: Taiwan’s partners would issue warnings if China attempted to use Interpol to target Taiwanese, and the global body has mechanisms to prevent it, an official said China has stationed two to four people specializing in Taiwan affairs at its embassies in several democratic countries to monitor and harass Taiwanese, actions that the host nations would not tolerate, National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) said yesterday. Tsai made the comments at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, which asked him and Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) to report on potential conflicts in the Taiwan Strait and military preparedness. Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) expressed concern that Beijing has posted personnel from China’s Taiwan Affairs Office to its
BACK TO WORK? Prosecutors said they are considering filing an appeal, while the Hsinchu City Government said it has applied for Ann Kao’s reinstatement as mayor The High Court yesterday found suspended Hsinchu mayor Ann Kao (高虹安) not guilty of embezzling assistant fees, reducing her sentence to six months in prison commutable to a fine from seven years and four months. The verdict acquitted Kao of the corruption charge, but found her guilty of causing a public official to commit document forgery. The High Prosecutors’ Office said it is reviewing the ruling and considering whether to file an appeal. The Taipei District Court in July last year sentenced Kao to seven years and four months in prison, along with a four-year deprivation of civil rights, for contravening the Anti-Corruption
RSS