Poor organization and lack of experience contributed to the failure of Greater Kaohsiung’s Appendectomy Project in two campaigns on election day, activists said yesterday.
Representatives of the group’s Greater Kaohsiung branch bowed in apology to supporters at a press conference. A representative from Greater Kaohsiung surnamed Hsieh (謝小姐) cried quietly throughout the proceedings.
Activists had hoped to take advantage of the nine-in-one elections to collect the signatures necessary to enter the recall campaign’s second phase, setting up tables outside voting sites. However, petitions to recall Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislators Lin Kuo-cheng (林國正) and Huang Chao-shun (黃昭順) failed to reach the threshold of 2 percent of the electorate, with just 3,355 (1.38 percent) signatures collected for Lin and 2,321 (0.8 percent) for Huang.
In contrast, the effort to recall Taipei KMT Legislator Alex Tsai (蔡正元) passed the first threshold in August, breezing past the second threshold on election day with more than 40,000 signatures.
“I was surprised by the result,” said the group’s spokesperson, who is known as “Mr Lin from Taipei” (台北林先生).
He said that people from the relatively “pan-green” Greater Kaohsiung tend to be more enthusiastic about the group’s cause than Taipei residents.
Hsieh attributed the poor results to insufficient experience and organization, with a lack of staff and funding preventing the group from setting up signature-collection booths at all voting sites.
She said volunteer turnover was a key problem, with more than two-thirds of the initial summer student volunteers leaving for other cities during the fall school semester, and most fall volunteers returning to their hometowns to vote, forcing the group to quickly patch together a new team from returning students on election day.
In addition, Greater Kaohsiung volunteers failed to foresee a number of election-day expenses and did not raise any money beforehand, she said.
In contrast, volunteers in Taipei have been raising funds since May, Mr Lin from Taipei said.
Activists promised to continue working to collect signatures until the Dec. 31 deadline, when forms will be destroyed if the threshold remains unattained.
The name Appendectomy Project is a pun on a Mandarin Chinese term for pan-blue camp legislators, lan wei (藍委), which is pronounced the same as the word for “appendix” (闌尾).
The inspection equipment and data transmission system for new robotic dogs that Taipei is planning to use for sidewalk patrols were developed by a Taiwanese company, the city’s New Construction Office said today, dismissing concerns that the China-made robots could pose a security risk. The city is bringing in smart robotic dogs to help with sidewalk inspections, Taipei Deputy Mayor Lee Ssu-chuan (李四川) said on Facebook. Equipped with a panoramic surveillance system, the robots would be able to automatically flag problems and easily navigate narrow sidewalks, making inspections faster and more accurate, Lee said. By collecting more accurate data, they would help Taipei
TAKING STOCK: The USMC is rebuilding a once-abandoned airfield in Palau to support large-scale ground operations as China’s missile range grows, Naval News reported The US Marine Corps (USMC) is considering new sites for stockpiling equipment in the West Pacific to harden military supply chains and enhance mobility across the Indo-Pacific region, US-based Naval News reported on Saturday. The proposed sites in Palau — one of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies — and Australia would enable a “rapid standup of stored equipment within a year” of the program’s approval, the report said, citing documents published by the USMC last month. In Palau, the service is rebuilding a formerly abandoned World War II-era airfield and establishing ancillary structures to support large-scale ground operations “as China’s missile range and magazine
A 72-year-old man in Kaohsiung was sentenced to 40 days in jail after he was found having sex with a 67-year-old woman under a slide in a public park on Sunday afternoon. At 3pm on Sunday, a mother surnamed Liang (梁) was with her child at a neighborhood park when they found the man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and woman, surnamed Huang (黃), underneath the slide. Liang took her child away from the scene, took photographs of the two and called the police, who arrived and arrested the couple. During questioning, Tsai told police that he had met Huang that day and offered to
A British man was arrested for attempting to smuggle 14.37kg of marijuana into Taiwan through Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, Taipei Customs said late yesterday. The man, who arrived from Bangkok at 9pm on Friday, was asked by customs officers to open his luggage during a random inspection, Taipei Customs said in a news release. The passenger, whose identity was not disclosed, refused to open his suitcase and tried to flee the restricted area. He was eventually subdued by three customs officials and an Aviation Police Bureau officer. A later search of his checked luggage uncovered 14.37kg of marijuana buds. The case was handed over
RSS