The Central Election Commission yesterday announced that a recall election is to be held for New Power Party (NPP) Executive Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌).
Stability Power Alliance, a group opposed to gay marriage, mobilized for a petition drive to recall Huang, accusing him of neglect of his legislative duties.
The committee said the petition for his recall was signed by 31,922 of the 251,191 eligible voters in New Taipei City’s No. 12 electoral district.
As 26,745 of the signatures were valid, the petition passed the threshold of 25,120 signatures needed to proceed with the recall, the committee said.
The recall election is to be held on Dec. 16, the committee said, adding that it would be the first recall since the threshold was lowered through an amendment to the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法) in November last year.
Huang said that the recall poll would not just be a vote of confidence in him, but represent shared public belief in reform ideas.
“I cordially invite all of my friends to once again come forward and show the force and determination of your shared promotion of reforms,” Huang said, adding that his performance as a politician spoke for itself.
Meanwhile, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) said that he would seek his party’s nomination next year as the candidate in the Taichung mayoral election.
Chiang is the second KMT lawmaker to make a bid for the Taichung race, after KMT Legislator Lu Hsiu-yen’s (盧秀燕) announcement last week.
Chiang said his main goal is to create “a blessed new Taichung” for its residents.
KMT headquarters said that the two hopefuls would have to decide between themselves who should stand as the candidate or allow party members to vote on the issue.
In other election news, KMT Legislator Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said he had not ruled out seeking the party’s nomination next year for the Taipei mayoral election, but added the KMT should choose former premier Simon Chang (張善政) as its Taipei candidate should he announce his willingness to run.
Chiang Wan-an made the remarks in a radio interview when he was asked if he was interested in running in next year’s Taipei mayoral election.
Chiang Wan-an said he has received mixed opinions on the matter in talks with his constituents, with some people saying that he is inexperienced and trying to dissuade him from campaigning.
Chang is “clear-headed and visionary,” Chiang Wan-an said of his potential opponent.
“Several polls have indicated that he could beat Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲),” the lawmaker said, adding that Chang, an independent, has a large support base among pan-green and pan-blue supporters.
Additional reporting by CNA
The Council of Agriculture yesterday signed a Taiwan-Australia Agricultural Cooperation Implementation clause to open a new export market for the nation’s pineapple crop. The clause is an addition to existing cooperation measures, it said. China on Friday last week abruptly announced that it would suspend pineapple imports from Taiwan starting on Monday, on grounds that it had on multiple occasions discovered “harmful organisms” in shipments of the fruit. The public and private sectors have since joined hands to purchase the local fruit to help the nation’s pineapple farmers. Canberra has requested that all pineapples for export to Australia have their crown buds removed,
Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical Group might have lost its right to distribute the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for COVID-19 and the ability to fulfill a contract in Taiwan, civic groups Taiwan Citizen Front and the Economic Democracy Union said yesterday. In a radio interview on Feb. 17, Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), head of the Central Epidemic Command Center, said that last year, Taiwan was close to signing a contract to buy doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, but that the deal was halted at the last moment, with some speculating that Chinese interference was to blame. On Monday last week, the center
A Tainan taxi driver is the Taiwanese with the longest name, after he last month changed it so that it now contains 25 characters, the Anping District Household Registration Office said. The 47-year-old man, formerly known as Huang Hsin-hsiang (黃鑫翔), applied for the name change on Feb. 26, in the hope that it would bring him good luck. His new name starts with Huang Da-lan (黃大嵐) and adds another 22 characters, meaning “Huang Da-lan is the blessed darling and sweetheart of the god of joy, god of wealth, god of misfortune, god of Earth and all the gods,” it said. With
Broadcasting Corp of China chairman Jaw Shaw-kong (趙少康) yesterday said that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) “should not follow the Democratic Progressive Party’s [DPP] direction,” after KMT Chairman Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) had said that China posed a threat to Taiwan. Chiang was quoted by Reuters as saying during an interview that China’s “one country, two systems” formula for an unification with Taiwan “has no market” in the nation. Chiang also described China as the major threat to Taiwan, Reuters reported. Jaw, who has expressed interest in running for KMT chairman this year and in the 2024 presidential election, wrote on Facebook that