Campaigners aiming to recall Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators yesterday said they expect success in 30 out of 35 districts where drives have passed the second-stage threshold, which would mark a record number of recall votes held at once.
Hsinchu County recall campaigners yesterday announced that they reached the second-stage threshold in the recall effort against Legislator Lin Szu-ming (林思銘).
A total of 26,414 signatures have been gathered over the past two months, surpassing the 10 percent threshold of 23,287 in Hsinchu County’s second electoral district, chief campaigner Hsieh Ting-ting (謝婷婷) said.
Photo: Huang Tzu-yang, Taipei Times
“Our target is to gather an additional 1,500 signatures to reach what we consider a safe margin and ensure winning the recall vote against Lin,” she said.
However, the petition against KMT Legislator Hsu Hsin-ying (徐欣瑩) from the county’s first district was still facing difficulty, Hsieh said.
There are only a few days left before the deadline, but they were at about 18,000 signatures, a few thousand short of the 21,567 threshold, so volunteer teams must double their efforts, she said.
Meanwhile, groups in Miaoli County organized pep rallies and activities at several places.
Former Hakka Affairs Council minister Yang Chang-chen (楊長鎮) called on residents to support the recall drive, despite numerous reports of violence and intimidation against recall volunteers.
Yang said they were short of about 4,000 signatures in the recalls against KMT Legislator Chiu Chen-chun (邱鎮軍) and independent Legislator Chen Chao-ming (陳超明) from Miaoli County’s two electoral districts.
Campaigners said that given updates yesterday, they expect recall drives in 30 out of 35 districts to reach the second-stage threshold, which would be a historic achievement, adding that recall voting would likely be held in late July and August.
Data showed that KMT Legislator Hung Meng-kai (洪孟楷) of New Taipei City got the highest number of recall signatures, at 54,888 as of yesterday, followed by Taichung’s KMT Legislator Huang Chien-hao (黃健豪) at 54,451.
Recall bids against Taipei KMT legislators Hsu Chiao-hsin (徐巧芯) and Wang Hung-wei (王鴻薇) had the highest ratio of signatures past the threshold, at 175 percent and 171 percent respectively. They were followed by Taichung KMT Legislator Lo Ting-wei (羅廷瑋) at 169.3 percent and KMT caucus whip Fu Kun-chi of Hualien County at 169.1 percent.
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