Independent presidential hopefuls who collect enough signatures to qualify for the Jan. 13 presidential election would not be in contravention of the law if they drop out as long as they have not registered their candidacy with the Central Election Commission (CEC) as a candidate, CEC Chairperson Lee Chin-yung (李進勇) said yesterday.
Independent presidential hopefuls and their running mates, who are required to pass a petition threshold to qualify, can register as petition initiators with the CEC from today until Sunday, and can submit signatures from Tuesday next week to Nov. 2, the CEC said.
The results of the petitions would be announced by Nov. 14, it added.
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
On whether independent presidential hopefuls who have launched a petition for candidacy would be in contravention of Article 30 of the Presidential and Vice Presidential Election and Recall Act (總統副總統選舉罷免法) if they later decide to pull out of the race, Lee said: “If they do not register, withdrawal is not an issue. If they have registered, then withdrawal is out of the question.”
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co founder Terry Gou (郭台銘) last month announced his presidential bid, but has yet to announce his running mate.
Asked if independent presidential aspirants are legally liable if they abandon their campaign after submitting signatures to the commission, Lee said such an action would not be an infraction, as that would just mean they have forfeited the opportunity to register as presidential candidates.
“The decision of whether or not aspirants register as candidates falls within their civil right to participate in political affairs, and the CEC shall respect that decision,” CEC Vice Chairperson Chen Chao-chien (陳朝建) added.
“However, once they have registered as candidates under the act, they cannot withdraw their candidacy,” he said.
Candidates nominated by parties or independent candidates who collect enough signatures to qualify as candidates in the presidential election are required to register from Nov. 20 to 24.
Under the act, independent presidential hopefuls must obtain 289,667 signatures, or 1.5 percent of eligible voters in the previous presidential election, to qualify as candidates.
Those who attempt to “negotiate other candidates out” of the election by promising or giving them bribes or other undue benefits risk a prison term of three to 10 years and a fine of NT$2 million to NT$20 million (US$62,438 to US$624,376) under the act, Chen said.
Those who attempt to bribe eligible voters to petition for or against a presidential hopeful face a prison term of one to seven years and a fine of NT$1 million to NT$10 million, he said.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS