A campaign to unseat New Power Party (NPP) Executive Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) because of his vocal support for marriage equality has collected enough signatures to submit a recall petition, while the New Taipei City legislator reaffirmed his stance on gay marriage.
An alliance founded by New Taipei City residents opposed to gay marriage organized a signature drive in Sijhih (汐止) on Saturday and announced that it collected 3,124 valid signatures, exceeding the amount required to file a petition for a recall vote.
At least 2,511 signatures are needed to submit a recall petition and 25,119 signatures to launch a recall vote in Huang’s constituency, New Taipei City’s 12th electoral district covering Jinshan (金山), Wanli (萬里), Sijhih and other districts.
Photo: CNA
Alliance director Sun Chi-cheng (孫繼正) said they would submit the recall petition and signatures on Feb. 1 — the anniversary of Huang’s inauguration — to the Central Election Commission to proceed to the next step of the recall procedure.
Sun criticized Huang for “cheating the voters by campaigning for gay marriage without trying to honor his election promises.”
“Sexual education materials are rampant on campuses, so is sexuality,” Sun said.
Sun said Huang snubbed the opponents of proposed same-sex marriage legislation who petitioned Huang’s office against it last month, while Huang exposed the personal information of petitioners, causing them to become the target of Internet harassment.
Supporters of the campaign also cited Huang’s “substandard” performance in terms of local services, saying that he was hardly seen organizing any local events.
It was the first attempt to recall an elected official following an amendment to the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法), which was approved on Nov. 29 and lowered the threshold for submitting a recall petition from collecting the signatures of 2 percent of all registered voters of a constituency to 1 percent, while reducing the required number of signatures supporting a recall petition from 13 percent to 10 percent of voters in a constituency.
“I support the public’s right to practice democracy, but the recall campaign will not change my stance on marriage equality,” Huang said yesterday.
He said he should be judged in terms of his legislative performance, adding that all his work is open to public inspection.
China has reserved offshore airspace in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported yesterday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. These alerts, known as Notice to Air Missions (Notams), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert is
NAMING SPAT: The foreign ministry called on Denmark to propose an acceptable solution to the erroneous nationality used for Taiwanese on residence permits Taiwan has revoked some privileges for Danish diplomatic staff over a Danish permit that lists “Taiwan” as “China,” Eric Huang (黃鈞耀), head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs, told a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Reporters asked Huang whether the Danish government had responded to the ministry’s request that it correct the nationality on Danish residence permits of Taiwanese, which has been listed as “China” since 2024. Taiwan’s representative office in Denmark continues to communicate with the Danish government, and the ministry has revoked some privileges previously granted to Danish representatives in Taiwan and would continue to review
More than 6,000 Taiwanese students have participated in exchange programs in China over the past two years, despite the Mainland Affairs Council’s (MAC) “orange light” travel advisory, government records showed. The MAC’s publicly available registry showed that Taiwanese college and university students who went on exchange programs across the Strait numbered 3,592 and 2,966 people respectively. The National Immigration Agency data revealed that 2,296 and 2,551 Chinese students visited Taiwan for study in the same two years. A review of the Web sites of publicly-run universities and colleges showed that Taiwanese higher education institutions continued to recruit students for Chinese educational programs without
A bipartisan group of US senators has introduced a bill to enhance cooperation with Taiwan on drone development and to reduce reliance on supply chains linked to China. The proposed Blue Skies for Taiwan Act of 2026 was introduced by Republican US senators Ted Cruz and John Curtis, and Democratic US senators Jeff Merkley and Andy Kim. The legislation seeks to ease constraints on Taiwan-US cooperation in uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), including dependence on China-sourced components, limited access to capital and regulatory barriers under US export controls, a news release issued by Cruz on Wednesday said. The bill would establish a "Blue UAS
RSS