Leaders of the campaign to recall Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) yesterday said that they would launch the second stage of the recall process on Wednesday next week, aiming to gather 300,000 signatures in 30 days.
The Central Election Commission on Friday last week announced that a petition to recall Han had collected enough signatures to pass the threshold for the first step of the recall process.
The commission said that 28,560 signatures were verified as valid, higher than the required threshold of 22,814.
Photo: Wang Jung-hsiang, Taipei Times
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.
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 have 60 days to collect the signatures of 10 percent of the city’s eligible voters, or about 230,000 people, the commission said.
Dubbed the “four gentlemen of the recall Han campaign,” the campaign leaders are WeCare Kaohsiung founder Aaron Yin (尹立), a former Kaohsiung Cultural Affairs Bureau director-general; a spokesman for Citizens Mowing Action who uses the pseudonym Dr Leo; Chang Po-yang (張博洋), a representative of the Taiwan Statebuilding Party, and Chen Kuan-jung (陳冠榮), the initiator of the campaign.
Yesterday they visited the city’s Yicheng Temple (意誠堂) to pray and make an offering to the gods, to say thank you for the successful recall rally on Dec. 21, and to ask for a blessing to reach the threshold for the next stage.
In related news, the Kaohsiung City Government yesterday accused writer Ku Ling (苦苓) of slander.
The city government had said that holding a recall vote for Han vote and related activities would cost NT$200 million (US$6.68 million), which would place a financial strain on it.
Ku wrote that if citizens succeeded in voting Han out of office, the city government could save NT$120 billion.
“Since Han took up the position of mayor, he has saddled the city with NT$40 billion in debt,” Ku said. “Based on this rate, if Han finishes his four-year term, the debt could reach NT$120 billion.”
The city government said: “We demand that Ku Ling clarify his statement immediately and make a public apology, or we will file a lawsuit against him.”
The inspection equipment and data transmission system for new robotic dogs that Taipei is planning to use for sidewalk patrols were developed by a Taiwanese company, the city’s New Construction Office said today, dismissing concerns that the China-made robots could pose a security risk. The city is bringing in smart robotic dogs to help with sidewalk inspections, Taipei Deputy Mayor Lee Ssu-chuan (李四川) said on Facebook. Equipped with a panoramic surveillance system, the robots would be able to automatically flag problems and easily navigate narrow sidewalks, making inspections faster and more accurate, Lee said. By collecting more accurate data, they would help Taipei
TAKING STOCK: The USMC is rebuilding a once-abandoned airfield in Palau to support large-scale ground operations as China’s missile range grows, Naval News reported The US Marine Corps (USMC) is considering new sites for stockpiling equipment in the West Pacific to harden military supply chains and enhance mobility across the Indo-Pacific region, US-based Naval News reported on Saturday. The proposed sites in Palau — one of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies — and Australia would enable a “rapid standup of stored equipment within a year” of the program’s approval, the report said, citing documents published by the USMC last month. In Palau, the service is rebuilding a formerly abandoned World War II-era airfield and establishing ancillary structures to support large-scale ground operations “as China’s missile range and magazine
A 72-year-old man in Kaohsiung was sentenced to 40 days in jail after he was found having sex with a 67-year-old woman under a slide in a public park on Sunday afternoon. At 3pm on Sunday, a mother surnamed Liang (梁) was with her child at a neighborhood park when they found the man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and woman, surnamed Huang (黃), underneath the slide. Liang took her child away from the scene, took photographs of the two and called the police, who arrived and arrested the couple. During questioning, Tsai told police that he had met Huang that day and offered to
A British man was arrested for attempting to smuggle 14.37kg of marijuana into Taiwan through Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, Taipei Customs said late yesterday. The man, who arrived from Bangkok at 9pm on Friday, was asked by customs officers to open his luggage during a random inspection, Taipei Customs said in a news release. The passenger, whose identity was not disclosed, refused to open his suitcase and tried to flee the restricted area. He was eventually subdued by three customs officials and an Aviation Police Bureau officer. A later search of his checked luggage uncovered 14.37kg of marijuana buds. The case was handed over
RSS