Campaign groups have submitted petitions to recall 19 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers and a suspended Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) mayor, the Central Election Commission (CEC) confirmed yesterday.
Nineteen civil groups delivered boxes full of petitions to the commission’s headquarters in Taipei yesterday morning, where United Microelectronics Corp founder Robert Tsao (曹興誠) addressed the gathering.
Grassroots recall efforts are the true expression of the public’s will, to show that the people are the masters of the nation, Tsao said as spokesman for the Safeguard Taiwan, Anti-Communist Volunteers Alliance.
Photo: Lo Pei-de, Taipei Times
The 19 lawmakers potentially facing recall votes include KMT caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) and Legislator Wang Hung-wei (王鴻薇).
The other KMT legislators are Lee Yen-hsiu (李彥秀), Yeh Yuan-chih (葉元之), Niu Hsu-ting (牛煦庭), Tu Chuan-chi (涂權吉), Lu Ming-che (魯明哲), Wan Mei-ling (萬美玲), Lu Yu-ling (呂玉玲), Chiu Jo-hua (邱若華), Cheng Cheng-chien (鄭正鈐), Yu Hao (游顥), Yen Kuan-heng (顏寬恒), Liao Wei-hsiang (廖偉翔), Huang Chien-hao (黃健豪), Lo Ting-wei (羅廷瑋), Ting Hsueh-chung (丁學忠), Huang Chien-pin (黃建賓) and Ma Wen-chun (馬文君).
Suspended Hsinchu mayor Ann Kao (高虹安) of the TPP is also facing a recall vote, after she was suspended following a conviction for corruption in July last year.
Photo: Lo Pei-de, Taipei Times
The CEC said it would conduct an initial review of the recall petitions and, if approved, forward them to local election committees for review.
“These are citizen groups acting independently, working at the grassroots level and going beyond partisan politics,” Tsao said.
“China believes it can control Taiwan’s legislature by using money to buy off unscrupulous legislators, that it can subvert the country from within,” he said.
He said that KMT and TPP legislators feel emboldened to push through numerous bills in an “arrogant and autocratic manner.”
“However, they forgot that the main components of Taiwan’s political system are the citizens who vote in elections, not political parties,” Tsao said, calling the recall movement a “holy war” to clear out Chinese collaborators.
At a news conference at the legislature, Fu said that the KMT respects people expressing their opinions, “but we hope the ruling party would not stir up trouble.”
Fu urged people to remember President William Lai’s (賴清德) Lunar New Year message wishing that “every family can enjoy peace, togetherness and happiness,” and for “the ruling and opposition parties to have harmony and unity” in the coming year.
Separately, KMT youth wing members told reporters that their recall efforts against Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus secretary-general Rosalia Wu (吳思瑤) and DPP Legislator Wu Pei-yi (吳沛憶) have reached the first-stage threshold, at 1 percent of all eligible voters in their electoral districts.
They vowed to submit the signatures and documentation to the CEC later this week.
At a DPP news conference, caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) said that the current legislative session would be a “recall vote session” because “both sides have launched large-scale recall votes.”
“The large-scale recall vote initiative was started by the KMT,” Ker said, without elaborating. “The DPP is just responding.”
The recall votes would be completed by Sept. 1 at the latest, he said, adding that “the KMT would undoubtedly be defeated.”
Taipei has once again made it to the top 100 in Oxford Economics’ Global Cities Index 2025 report, moving up five places from last year to 60. The annual index, which was published last month, evaluated 1,000 of the most populated metropolises based on five indices — economics, human capital, quality of life, environment and governance. New York maintained its top spot this year, placing first in the economics index thanks to the strength of its vibrant financial industry and economic stability. Taipei ranked 263rd in economics, 44th in human capital, 15th in quality of life, 284th for environment and 75th in governance,
The Sports Administration yesterday demanded an apology from the national table tennis association for barring 17-year-old Yeh Yi-tian (葉伊恬) from competing in the upcoming World Table Tennis (WTT) United States Smash tournament in Las Vegas this July. The sports agency said in a statement that the Chinese Taipei Table Tennis Association (CTTTA) must explain to the public why it withdrew Yeh from the WTT tournament in Las Vegas. The sports agency said it contacted the association to express its disapproval of the decision-making process after receiving a complaint from Yeh’s coach, Chuang
Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) tendered his resignation last night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by media. His resignation was immediately accepted by the Control Yuan. In a statement explaining why he had resigned, Lee apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon on May 20. The issue first came to light late last month, when TVBS News reported that Lee had instructed his driver to take the dog to the salon. The news channel broadcast photos that it said were taken by an unnamed whistle-blower, which purportedly showed the
A former officer in China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) who witnessed the aftermath of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre has warned that Taiwan could face a similar fate if China attempts to unify the country by force. Li Xiaoming (李曉明), who was deployed to Beijing as a junior officer during the crackdown, said Taiwanese people should study the massacre carefully, because it offers a glimpse of what Beijing is willing to do to suppress dissent. “What happened in Tiananmen Square could happen in Taiwan too,” Li told CNA in a May 22 interview, ahead of the massacre’s 36th anniversary. “If Taiwanese students or
RSS