With the petition to recall Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Alex Tsai (蔡正元) already submitted, activists from the Appendectomy Project have now turned their efforts to the two other campaigns to recall KMT legislators Wu Yu-sheng (吳育昇) and Lin Hong-chih (林鴻池).
With the deadline to submit the petitions on Friday, the project redoubled its efforts in the New Taipei City constituencies of Wu and Lin over the weekend.
In order to attain the required 13 percent threshold to launch a recall referendum, the project must garner the support of 37,469 signatories in Wu’s constituency of Tamsui/Sanjhi (淡水/三芝) districts, and 27,677 in Lin’s Banciao (板橋) constituency.
Photo: Courtesy of the Appendectomy Project
Project activists said more than 5,000 signatures were collected in Banciao on Saturday thanks to volunteers who canvassed several traditional marketplaces. However, the project has collected less than half of the required signatures to recall Lin.
It has had better luck with the petition to recall Wu, with nearly three-quarters of the required signatures gathered.
The petition to recall Tsai, which passed the required threshold last week, is now under review by the Central Election Commission, which has 40 days to verify the information provided by the petitioners. If it validates the petition, a recall referendum is likely to be held before the end of February.
The name Appendectomy Project was chosen because the term for pan-blue camp legislators in Mandarin Chinese, lan wei (藍委), is pronounced the same as the word for “appendix” (闌尾).
The project said it targeted the three KMT lawmakers because they adhered to President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) instructions rather than the public’s wishes.
FINAL COUNTDOWN: About 50,000 attended a pro-recall rally yesterday, while the KMT and the TPP plan to rally against the recall votes today Democracy activists, together with arts and education representatives, yesterday organized a motorcade, while thousands gathered on Ketagalan Boulevard in Taipei in the evening in support of tomorrow’s recall votes. Recall votes for 24 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers and suspended Hsinchu City mayor Ann Kao (高虹安) are to be held tomorrow, while recall votes for seven other KMT lawmakers are scheduled for Aug. 23. The afternoon motorcade was led by the Spring Breeze Culture and Arts Foundation, the Tyzen Hsiao Foundation and the Friends of Lee Teng-hui Association, and was joined by delegates from the Taiwan Statebuilding Party and the Taiwan Solidarity
‘NON-RED’: Taiwan and Ireland should work together to foster a values-driven, democratic economic system, leveraging their complementary industries, Lai said President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday expressed hopes for closer ties between Taiwan and Ireland, and that both countries could collaborate to create a values-driven, democracy-centered economic system. He made the remarks while meeting with an Irish cross-party parliamentary delegation visiting Taiwan. The delegation, led by John McGuinness, deputy speaker of the Irish house of representatives, known as the Dail, includes Irish lawmakers Malcolm Byrne, Barry Ward, Ken O’Flynn and Teresa Costello. McGuinness, who chairs the Ireland-Taiwan Parliamentary Friendship Association, is a friend of Taiwan, and under his leadership, the association’s influence has grown over the past few years, Lai said. Ireland is
Instead of threatening tariffs on Taiwan-made chips, the US should try to reinforce cooperation with Taiwan on semiconductor development to take on challenges from the People’s Republic of China (PRC), a Taiwanese think tank said. The administration of US President Donald Trump has threatened to impose across-the-board import duties of 32 percent on Taiwan-made goods and levy a separate tariff on semiconductors, which Taiwan is hoping to avoid. The Research Institute for Democracy, Society, and Emerging Technology (DSET), a National Science and Technology Council think tank, said that US efforts should focus on containing China’s semiconductor rise rather than impairing Taiwan. “Without
An SOS message in a bottle has been found in Ireland that is believed to have come from the Taiwanese captain of fishing vessel Yong Yu Sing No. 18 (永裕興18號), who has been missing without a trace for over four years, along with nine Indonesian crew members. The vessel, registered to Suao (蘇澳), went missing near Hawaii on Dec. 30, 2020. The ship has since been recovered, but the 10 crew members have never been found. The captain, surnamed Lee (李), is believed to have signed the note with his name. A post appeared on Reddit on Tuesday after a man