Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators Ma Wen-chun (馬文君) and Yu Hao (游顥) face recall votes in Nantou County on Aug. 23, the same day that a national referendum on the issue of restarting a nuclear power plant is to be held, the Central Election Commission (CEC) said in a statement yesterday.
The threshold of 10 percent of voters in Ma’s and Yu’s constituencies, Nantou County’s first and second respectively, has been reached in both petition drives, as groups submitted additional signatures during the grace period, the CEC said.
The campaign against Ma garnered 20,193 valid signatures, surpassing the 10 percent figure of 18,622, while 21,735 valid signatures were submitted in the Yu campaign, topping the required 19,833, the statement said.
Photo: Liao Chen-hui, Taipei Times
The recall vote is to be held on the same day as a national referendum on whether to restart the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant.
The facility in Pingtung County was decommissioned on May 17.
It will take time to ensure that the CEC’s Nantou County office would have the resources required to organize the recall votes in addition to the work it has to do for the referendum, the statement said.
Separately yesterday, the Taiwan Republic Office and other groups held a rally outside KMT headquarters in Taipei to call on people to join a “volunteer army” to assist in street campaigning to recall KMT lawmakers.
“We are fully focused on removing pro-China KMT lawmakers who are colluding with Beijing to sell out Taiwan,” Taiwan Republic Office director Chilly Chen (陳峻涵) said.
“It is time for more people to sign up to work for the recall campaigns, as we are in a tough fight to kick out KMT members who are betraying our country by cooperating with the Chinese communist bandits,” Chen said. “It is time to safeguard our democracy and for the citizens of Taiwan to lead the nation forward.”
In other news, the Pingtung County Prosecutors’ Office’s detention of Huang Pi-yun (黃碧雲), deputy chair of the KMT Organizational Development Committee, in a case of alleged forgery of petitions in a recall campaign targeting Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Saidhai Tahovecahe, brought the total number of KMT offices nationwide that have been searched in similar probes to 20, authorities said yesterday.
KMT offices in Keelung, Taipei, New Taipei City, Taichung and Tainan, as well as Chiayi, Pingtung, Hualien, Taitung and Nantou counties have been searched after complaints alleging forgery and unlawful use of personal information relating to the KMT’s signature petitions to recall DPP lawmakers and city councilors.
Tainan prosecutors on May 8 indicted 11 people over alleged forgery and breaches of the Personal Data Protection Act (個人資料保護法).
Prosecutors have indicted 242 people in connection with recall forgery probes, with 31 in Taipei, 61 in New Taipei City, as well as nine staff members of the office of KMT Legislator Lo Ming-tsai (羅明才) in Sindian District (新店), 16 in Keelung, 18 in Yilan County, 34 in Taichung, nine in Chiayi County, 48 in Tainan, three in Kaohsiung and 13 in Pingtung County, prosecutors said.
Additional reporting by Hsieh Chun-lin
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