Campaigners seeking to recall Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Huang Chien-pin (黃建賓) yesterday delivered 16,671 signatures to the Taitung County Election Commission, becoming the first in the nation to complete the second phase of signature-gathering necessary to trigger a recall election.
Hung Chuan-cheng (洪銓政), a leading organizer of the campaign, said they had gathered 180,000 signatures, but removed flawed signatures.
They needed 11,534 signatures to cross the second-phase threshold, meaning organizers exceeded their target by 44 percent, he said.
Photo: CNA
Huang had previously accused the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) of “hunting down” political opponents in an attempt to relitigate last year’s election.
The recall campaign gathered enough signatures due to the low number of residents in his district, rather than his alleged unpopularity, he said.
The recall campaign is “bullying” county residents, and creating political strife that has annoyed the people of Taitung, he added.
The DPP only seeks to use Taitung as a tool for fighting its political rivals and has failed to serve the county’s residents, he said, citing the Ministry of Transportation and Communications on Wednesday saying it could not build a high-speed rail station in the county.
Meanwhile, campaign groups targeting KMT legislators Hung Mong-kai (洪孟楷) and Yeh Yuan-chih (葉元之) of New Taipei City on Wednesday announced that they had collected 50,592 and more than 32,000 signatures respectively in their bids to remove the lawmakers.
The group campaigning against Hung Mong-kai wrote on Facebook that it had achieved its “safe” target of 1.3 times the required threshold of 10 percent of all eligible voters in New Taipei City’s first electoral district.
Meanwhile, campaigners in Banciao District (板橋) seeking to oust Yeh in the seventh electoral district said they had collected 1.37 times the required number of signatures and plan to deliver them to the city’s election commission on Monday next week.
Hung Mong-kai said he was prepared for the challenge, urging supporters to “defend the lawmaker they trust” and voice their disagreement using their ballots in the recall vote.
Voters had voiced their disapproval of the Executive Yuan at a KMT rally on Ketagalan Boulevard in Taipei on Saturday last week, he said.
The demonstrators disagree with the Executive Yuan’s “anti-democratic” polices, said Hung Mong-kai, who won 158,596 votes, the highest in the legislative elections last year.
Yeh, a former New Taipei City councilor, who began his first four-year term in the legislature on Feb. 1 last year, said his service in the electoral district has been endorsed by local wardens and groups, adding that he believes voters can see through the DPP’s intentions and would not tolerate a recall vote he described as a showdown.
The ongoing recall campaigns were started by the ruling DPP, with caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) in early January calling for mass recalls to oust KMT legislators.
KMT lawmakers hold a narrow majority in the legislature and have teamed up with Taiwan People’s Party lawmakers and two independents to form an opposition majority of 62-51.
RESOLUTIONS DEBATE: Taiwan’s allies said that UN and WHA resolutions cited by China and other nations ‘do not determine Taiwan’s participation in WHO activities’ A proposal to invite Taiwan to this year’s World Health Assembly (WHA) was rejected on Monday, resulting in Taipei’s absence from the annual meeting for a ninth consecutive year, although partners spoke up for Taiwan’s participation at the first day of the meeting. The first agenda item after the opening was a “two-on-two debate” on a proposal to invite Taiwan to participate at the WHA as an observer. Similar to previous years, two countries made statements in favor of the proposal, while two others expressed their opposition. Philippine Secretary of Health Teodoro Herbosa, president of the 78th WHA, accepted the WHA General Committee’s
Palauan President Surangel Whipps Jr arrived in Taiwan last night to kick off his first visit to the country since beginning his second term earlier this year. After arriving at Taoyuan International Airport at around 6:30 pm, Whipps and his delegation were welcomed by Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍). Speaking to gathered media, the Palauan leader said he was excited and honored to be back in Taiwan on his first state visit to Taiwan since he was sworn in this January. Among those traveling with Whipps is Minister of State Gustav N. Aitaro, Public Infrastructure
Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) on Friday laid out the Cabinet’s updated policy agenda and recapped the government’s achievements ahead of the one-year anniversary of President William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration. Cho said the government had made progress across a range of areas, including rebuilding Hualien, cracking down on fraud, improving pedestrian safety and promoting economic growth. “I hope the public will not have the impression that the Cabinet only asked the legislature to reconsider a bunch of legal amendments,” Cho said, calling the moves “necessary” to protect constitutional governance and the public’s interest. The Cabinet would work toward achieving its “1+7” plan, he said. The
Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) hosted a dinner in Taipei last night with key Taiwanese suppliers to celebrate the successful mass production of the company’s new Blackwell AI systems. Speaking to the media earlier yesterday, Huang thanked Nvidia’s Taiwanese partners for their contributions to the company’s ecosystem, while also sharing his plans to meet with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) founder Morris Chang (張忠謀). In response to rumors that Nvidia will launch a downgraded Hopper H20 chip for China in July, Huang dismissed the reports, saying, “That is not true.” He clarified that there
RSS