Campaigners seeking the recall of seven Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators yesterday said they met the second-stage threshold for gathering signatures from at least 10 percent of voters in the representatives’ districts.
Three of the legislators are in Taipei, one is in New Taipei City, two are in Taoyuan and one is in Taitung County.
One of the groups said it gathered 40,000 signatures to recall KMT Legislator Lee Yen-hsiu (李彥秀), surpassing the 31,810 signatures needed.
Photo: CNA
Several teams — who have set up stations in front of the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center, and outside MRT stations and schools — would continue the signature drive, with a goal of gathering 60,000 signatures, the group’s organizers said.
Campaigners announced that they met the second-stage threshold for KMT legislators Wang Hung-wei (王鴻薇) and Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強), also representing Taipei districts, with more than 35,000 and more than 24,000 signatures respectively.
The 10 percent threshold for Wang is 27,733 signatures and for Lo it is 23,313, recall organizers said.
Recall campaigners also said they met the second-stage requirement for Yeh Yuan-chih (葉元之), one of two KMT legislators representing New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋), gathering 26,176 signatures, exceeding the more than 23,000-signature threshold.
In Taoyuan, campaigners reported gathering 34,000 and 31,389 signatures to recall KMT legislators Niu Hsu-ting (牛煦庭) and Tu Chuan-chi (涂權吉) respectively, beating the 10 percent thresholds of 33,956 and 30,872.
In Taitung County, a group seeking to recall KMT Legislator Huang Chien-pin (黃健賓) reported gathering 34,000 signatures, surpassing the 33,956 threshold.
Meanwhile, the group Shimmer Hualien said it was nearing the 19,377-signature threshold to oust KMT caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁), but needed a strong final push this week.
“It’s coming down to the final stretch,” said the group’s leader, who identifies himself as “W.”
He urged people to turn out to recall Fu in the final 10 days of the second-stage.
“We are fighting to save Hualien County, and have made good progress, as we have reached 18,000 signatures already,” he said.
“To oust Fu, we must accelerate and push on, to get past 19,000 by this coming week, then push on to reach at least 25,000 signatures as a final goal,” he said.
The 25,000 figure was a “safety target” to ensure the campaign still meets the threshold, as signatures can be eliminated due to errors during the review process, he said.
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