The Central Election Commission (CEC) came under fire yesterday after an official reportedly implied that the referendum to recall Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Alex Tsai (蔡正元) on Saturday attracted only supporters of the pan-green camp.
The comments sparked controversy, as they implied that the CEC — which is in charge of holding elections — had failed to maintain administrative neutrality.
The referendum failed to attain the 50 percent voter turnout legally required to recall a lawmaker, despite an overwhelming majority of votes cast in favor of ousting Tsai.
Driven by the Appendectomy Project, the poll attracted a total of 79,303 votes, marking a turnout of 24.98 percent.
According to a report by the Chinese-language United Daily News, an unnamed CEC official said the results indicated that the voters were “mostly core supporters of the Democratic Progressive Party [DPP].”
The official said that the number of votes in favor of the recall effort — 76,737 — was roughly the same number of votes that DPP legislative candidate Lee Chien-chang (李建昌) received in the 2012 elections — 78,097.
The official added that the public should “think carefully” before initiating recall campaigns, as the referendum cost NT$10 million in administrative expenses.
Taipei City Councilor Kao Chia-yu (高嘉瑜), a member of the DPP, criticized the CEC, saying its officials had “overly politicized” the recall campaign and neglected to acknowledge that people have the right to participate in recall campaigns.
“More than 60 percent of the voters were young people,” she said, adding that the referendum might have featured the youngest voter composition in the nation’s history.
“The whole generation places great importance upon their rights to recall politicians,” she said.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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