The Appendectomy Project’s campaign to oust Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Alex Tsai (蔡正元) reached a new milestone yesterday, with the inauguration of the nation’s first “Recall Headquarters,” launched in Taipei’s Neihu District (內湖).
To recall Tsai in the upcoming referendum, which is to take place on Feb. 14, more than half the ballots cast must be in favor of the motion.
A 50 percent turnout is also required for the referendum to be declared as valid.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
Instead of performing a traditional ribbon-cutting ceremony, the organizers sliced apart a pig’s large intestine with a scalpel — an allusion to the name of the campaign, which was chosen because the Mandarin term for “blue-camp legislator” (藍委) is pronounced in the same way as “appendix” (闌尾).
The event took on a jubilant tone, as guest speakers jeered at what they said were “ridiculous” regulations that bar all campaign activities for recall referendums.
Although legislators recently launched a motion to revise the Election and Recall Act (公務人員選舉罷免法), which in its current form renders all promotional activities for recall referendums illegal, the amendment is not expected to be ratified before the upcoming referendum — meaning that organizers of the campaign could be fined between NT$100,000 and NT$1 million (between US$3,131 and US$31,312).
Legal expert Huang Yueh-hung (黃越宏) jokingly said the project should remind the public that campaigning for the referendum is illegal by using campaign trucks and fliers.
Campaign organizer Tseng Kuang-chih (曾光志) said that like traditional campaign headquarters that elaborate on a candidate’s strengths, the project’s “Recall Headquarters” would serve a similar function, except it would work toward showing how Tsai failed the public.
He added that the project’s priority after the referendum would be to continue to promote recall regulation reform, as the current threshold “seriously infringes on people’s rights to direct participation in public affairs.”
The campaign received the endorsement of 58,989 residents for its petition for a recall referendum in Tsai’s constituency — Taipei’s Neihu (內湖) and Nangang (南港) districts — paving the way for the first recall vote in the nation since 1994.
The required turnout for a recall was raised from one-third to 50 percent before the 1994 referendum, which ended in failure because of low turnout.
The coast guard drove away 567 Chinese boats and seized seven illegally operating in Taiwanese waters in the first six months of this year, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. They mostly operated near Kinmen and Penghu counties, resulting in fines totaling NT$1.7 million (US$52,440), it said. Three ships — two near Kinmen County and one near Penghu County — were detained in January for illegally crossing the border, while one ship each was detained near Kinmen in February and Penghu in March respectively, it said. The ship seized near Penghu in January was the Yun Ao (雲澳), detained by the CGA’s
The entire Alishan Forest Railway line is to reopen for the first time in 15 years on Saturday, with tickets to go on sale at 2pm today. The historic railway from Chiayi to Alishan (阿里山) is finally set to reopen after the completion of the final No. 42 tunnel, Alishan Forest Railway and Cultural Heritage Office Deputy Director-General Chou Heng-kai (周恆凱) said. It is to run on a new timetable, with four trains daily, he said. The 9am train is to depart from Chiayi Railway Station bound for Shizilu Station (十字路), while the 10am train departing from Chiayi is to go all the
Military photovoltaic projects have been found to have used Chinese-made devices blacklisted by the government, including Huawei Technologies Co routers, the Ministry of National Defense’s Armaments Bureau said on Thursday. An ongoing investigation has identified the illegal use of 128 current transformers, two routers and a data reader at the Hungchailin Army Base, Pinghai Navy Base and Tri-Service General Hospital’s Songshan branch, it said. The devices were manufactured in the Chinese factories of German solar energy equipment supplier SMA Solar Technology, Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Delta Electronics Co, Chinese electronics manufacturer Huawei and Taiwanese industrial PC maker Advantech Co, the bureau said. The bureau’s
FLU CONTINUES: Hospitals reported 101,091 visits for flu-like illnesses last week, while 68 severe cases and 16 flu-related deaths were also reported, the CDC said The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported 932 hospitalizations due to COVID-19 and 64 related deaths for last week, adding that the number of people who had contracted new SARS-CoV-2 subvariants KP.2 and LB.1 has increased. The number of people hospitalized due to COVID-19 increased from 815 in the previous week to 932 last week, while 90 percent of the 64 deceased were aged 65 or older, CDC physician Lin Yung-ching (林詠青) said. JN.1 was still the dominant variant among local and imported cases in the past four weeks, while KP.2 was the second-most common, Lin said. Cases with the LB.1 subvariant