A petition to recall Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has collected enough signatures to pass the threshold for the first step of the recall process, the Central Election Commission (CEC) said on Friday.
A total of 28,560 signatures were verified as valid for the petition, exceeding the required minimum of 22,814, the CEC said.
Under the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法), the first step in the three-step recall process is to raise a proposal containing the signatures of 1 percent of the constituency’s eligible voters.
Photo: Chen Wen-chan, Taipei Times
In the case of Kaohsiung, with an estimated 2.28 million eligible voters, this works out to be 22,800 or more signatures.
In the second phase, the initiators of the petition — which was submitted one year after Han’s inauguration on Dec. 25, 2018, as required by law — have 60 days to collect the signatures of 10 percent of the city’s eligible voters, or about 230,000, the CEC said.
Under the act, the previously collected signatures would not be considered valid for this step.
For the recall to pass the third phase, a simple majority must vote in favor of a recall, with at least 25 percent of eligible voters participating, about 570,000 people in the case of Kaohsiung, the CEC said.
Through the Kaohsiung City Government Information Bureau, Han said that he would “respect the decision of the people,” adding that his priority is to spare no effort in managing city affairs.
WeCare Kaohsiung founder Aaron Yin (尹立) urged city officials not to interfere with the Kaohsiung City Election Commission’s processing of the petition.
Kaohsiung Deputy Mayor Chen Hsiung-wen (陳雄文), who is also chairman of the city’s election commission, said that the act has no such requirement, but promised that the petition would be handled fairly and justly.
As Han declared his candidacy in the presidential race just three months after beginning his term as mayor, WeCare has accused Han of abandoning Kaohsiung.
Han has said that he was urged to run by KMT officials.
He began taking time off to campaign for the presidency in October last year, two months short of serving one full year as mayor.
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS