A petition to recall Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) is expected to clear an initial threshold for getting the proposal on a ballot as the number of signatures collected nears 30,000, organizers said yesterday.
If the petition succeeds, it would be the first time a mayor is recalled in Taiwan, said the group Citizen Mowing Action, which organized the petition with We Care Kaohsiung and other groups.
“Recalling Han is difficult, but it is the right thing to do,” said a Citizen Mowing Action spokesman surnamed Lee (李).
Photo: CNA
The campaign is not funded by any political parties or corporations, so group members have to pay for expenses out of their own pockets, Lee said.
Citizen Mowing Action and We Care Kaohsiung on Thursday last week began distributing and collecting petition forms to recall Han, who is contesting the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) presidential primary.
The purpose of the petition is to punish Han for giving little thought and effort to running Kaohsiung and to stop opportunists from blurring the nation’s sovereignty and manipulating cross-strait relations, We Care Kaohsiung said on Facebook on Saturday.
In addition to sending signed petition forms to the groups, people can also mail them to the offices of the Taiwan Radical Wings or the Democratic Progressive Party’s Kaohsiung city councilors, the organizers said.
Taiwan Radical Wings spokesman Chen Po-wei (陳柏惟) said that it would organize a march in Kaohsiung to urge people to recall Han on July 14, after the KMT has conducted a poll to determine its candidate for next year’s presidential election.
“If you love Kaohsiung, you should love it your entire life. You cannot look down on the city, then pursue it, but finally abandon it,” he said.
The march is inevitable, as Han has broken his promise to be mayor, he said.
Asked why Taiwan Radical Wings chose to hold the march on the day before the KMT unveils the result of its primary poll, Chen said that the party cares more about the interests of the public than its own development.
Recalling Han is expected to be a lengthy battle and the key challenge is passing a second-stage threshold for initiating a recall election, he said.
When asked about the petition yesterday, Han told reporters in Kaohsiung that the city government must be responsible and quickly complete its tasks.
“As for other issues, such as political manipulations and people’s political opinions, it is a democratic society and I respect them,” he said.
Under the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法), to launch an election to recall the mayor, 1 percent of the electorate, or 22,814 residents in Kaohsiung, must sign a first-phase recall petition; and 10 percent of the local electorate, or 228,134 residents, must sign a second-phase petition.
To recall the mayor, 25 percent of Kaohsiung’s electorate must vote in favor of recalling him, with the number of “yes” votes exceeding the “no” votes.
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
‘SPEY’ REACTION: Beijing said its Eastern Theater Command ‘organized troops to monitor and guard the entire process’ of a Taiwan Strait transit China sent 74 warplanes toward Taiwan between late Thursday and early yesterday, 61 of which crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait. It was not clear why so many planes were scrambled, said the Ministry of National Defense, which tabulated the flights. The aircraft were sent in two separate tranches, the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday “confirmed and welcomed” a transit by the British Royal Navy’s HMS Spey, a River-class offshore patrol vessel, through the Taiwan Strait a day earlier. The ship’s transit “once again [reaffirmed the Strait’s] status as international waters,” the foreign ministry said. “Such transits by