By-elections will be held on Feb. 7 to fill seats held by five legislators who were elected as city or county heads in the nine-in-one elections last Saturday, the Central Election Committee (CEC) said yesterday.
Three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers and two from the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) are giving up their seats: the DPP’s Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍), who was elected Greater Taichung mayor; Wei Ming-ku (魏明谷), who won the Changhua County commissioner race and Pan Meng-an (潘孟安) who was elected Pingtung County commissioner; while the KMT’s Hsu Yao-chang (徐耀昌) won the Miaoli County commissioner race and Lin Ming-chen (林明溱) won the Nantou County seat.
They will take up their new offices on Dec. 25.
Meanwhile, Sunflower movement leader Chen Wei-ting (陳為廷) yesterday denied rumors that he is interested in replacing Hsu in the Miaoli County seat, writing on Facebook that he “has never seriously considered” making a run for a seat in the Legislative Yuan.
According to the head of the CEC’s department of legal affairs, Lai Chin-kuang (賴錦珖), even if Chen did decide to run, he would be ineligible to fill the seat if he won because he has yet to fulfill his military service requirement.
Under the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act (公職人員選罷法), any male citizen who is drafted automatically loses his eligibility to hold office, Lai said.
One person who has already announced his intention to run for a seat is exiled Chinese dissident Wuer Kaixi, who said he would seek Greater Taichung seat that Lin has held.
Wuer Kaixi, a 46-year-old a Uighur who was one of the student leaders in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, said he had been inspired by independent Taipei mayor-elect Ko Wen-je’s (柯文哲) victory in the pro-KMT stronghold of Taipei.
He said he wanted to become a lawmaker because of the problems faced by Taiwan, including a severe challenge from China and incessant partisan bickering.
He said he hoped to break the cycle of partisan strife and to deepen the nation’s democracy.
He said that he does not fear pressure and remains poised amid turmoil, traits that he said would make him a good legislator.
On whether Taiwanese voters would be willing to accept him, Wuer Kaixi said he has had a Republic of China national identification card for 15 years and has never had doubts about being accepted.
He met his Taiwanese wife in the US when she was studying there.
The couple later settled in Taichung, where he has worked as a radio host and political commentator and now in the information technology and financial sectors.
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