A citizens alliance said yesterday that it is launching a recall campaign against incompetent legislators because President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) poor governance has reached a level that demands decisive action against lawmakers who place their personal and party interests above everything else.
“We are launching the campaign because recalling Ma would be much more difficult due to the high threshold. Secondly, Taiwanese have never before exercised their constitutional right of recall,” award-winning screenwriter and author Neil Peng (馮光遠), one of the founders of the newly established Constitution 133 Alliance (憲法133實踐聯盟), told a press conference.
Article 133 of the Constitution states that “a person elected may be recalled by his constituency.”
The alliance said it is not targeting specific lawmakers or political parties, but would primarily focus on recalling those lawmakers who ignored their mandate and aligned themselves with Ma and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), adding that it would also recall any Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmaker deemed incompetent.
The press conference yesterday drew the public’s attention because of the number of celebrities among the alliance’s founders, including film director Ko I-chen (柯一正), political commentator Nan Fang Shuo (南方朔), environmentalist Robin Winkler, Hakka folk singer Lin Sheng-xiang (林生祥) and retired National Tsing Hua University professor Peng Ming-hui (彭明輝).
Positioned as a civil movement, the campaign will try to garner public support largely through Internet-based promotions and mobilizations, but it does not rule out collaborating with political parties, Peng said.
Letters of commitment will be sent to lawmakers, who will be asked to state their position on several major controversial issues, such as nuclear energy and the cross-strait service trade agreement, before the alliance makes its recall recommendations based on their replies.
“Legislators are supposed to be the representatives of the people, but some of them have turned their back on the people and have become the enemy of the people. That is why we want to take the matter into our own hands,” Ko said.
Recalling a legislator requires a minimum of 2 percent of the total electorate in the legislator’s electoral district to propose the recall bid for it to be legitimate. If the proposal is accepted, it must then be jointly petitioned by no less than 13 percent of the total electors. The motion then must receive votes from more than half of the total electorate, more than 50 percent of which have to support the recall if the motion is to pass.
However, the process would be much more important than the results and it would “set an unprecedented example for Taiwan’s democracy,” Winkler said.
Peng said the campaign against the lawmakers was “actually a reflection of the people’s disappointment with the Ma administration’s governance and its violations of human rights.”
Controversies and chaos in Taiwanese society today can be traced back to government officials’ being brainwashed by neoliberalism and their belief that sacrificing the benefits of the few would bring greater good to the majority, he said.
“Unfortunately, that was not the case in Taiwan. What the government did in Miaoli County’s Dapu Borough (大埔) and with the cross-strait service trade agreement has sacrificed the rights of half of the people and benefited only ‘1 percent,’” Peng said.
Taipei has once again made it to the top 100 in Oxford Economics’ Global Cities Index 2025 report, moving up five places from last year to 60. The annual index, which was published last month, evaluated 1,000 of the most populated metropolises based on five indices — economics, human capital, quality of life, environment and governance. New York maintained its top spot this year, placing first in the economics index thanks to the strength of its vibrant financial industry and economic stability. Taipei ranked 263rd in economics, 44th in human capital, 15th in quality of life, 284th for environment and 75th in governance,
The Sports Administration yesterday demanded an apology from the national table tennis association for barring 17-year-old Yeh Yi-tian (葉伊恬) from competing in the upcoming World Table Tennis (WTT) United States Smash tournament in Las Vegas this July. The sports agency said in a statement that the Chinese Taipei Table Tennis Association (CTTTA) must explain to the public why it withdrew Yeh from the WTT tournament in Las Vegas. The sports agency said it contacted the association to express its disapproval of the decision-making process after receiving a complaint from Yeh’s coach, Chuang
Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) tendered his resignation last night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by media. His resignation was immediately accepted by the Control Yuan. In a statement explaining why he had resigned, Lee apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon on May 20. The issue first came to light late last month, when TVBS News reported that Lee had instructed his driver to take the dog to the salon. The news channel broadcast photos that it said were taken by an unnamed whistle-blower, which purportedly showed the
A former officer in China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) who witnessed the aftermath of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre has warned that Taiwan could face a similar fate if China attempts to unify the country by force. Li Xiaoming (李曉明), who was deployed to Beijing as a junior officer during the crackdown, said Taiwanese people should study the massacre carefully, because it offers a glimpse of what Beijing is willing to do to suppress dissent. “What happened in Tiananmen Square could happen in Taiwan too,” Li told CNA in a May 22 interview, ahead of the massacre’s 36th anniversary. “If Taiwanese students or