Some civil society groups yesterday announced that they have collected enough signatures to pass the first-stage threshold to initiate a recall vote against Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators in 18 constituencies nationwide, saying that they would submit the signatures to the Central Election Commission (CEC) today.
They also said that they expected to pass the threshold in eight more constituencies in the coming days, meaning the number of KMT legislators facing a recall vote could reach 26.
The groups set up stations to collect signatures at local marketplaces and busy commercial districts. The legislators their petition drives target include Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) of Hualien County, KMT caucus deputy secretary-general Wang Hung-wei (王鴻薇), Lee Yen-hsiu (李彥秀) of Taipei, Yeh Yuan-chih (葉元之) of New Taipei City, Yen Kuan-heng (顏寬恒) of Taichung and Cheng Cheng-chien (鄭正鈐) of Hsinchu City.
Photo courtesy of Chen Yu-ling
Activists from “Shimmer Hualien” (微光花蓮) are leading the effort in the east coast county to remove Fu from the legislature. Shimmer Hualien members said they would hold a joint news conference with other civil organizations today at 9am in front of the CEC in Taipei.
A Shimmer Hualien representative said last month they had gathered 7,161 signatures, which is over 5,000 more than the required first-stage threshold of 1,938.
The representative did not say his name and had his photos taken only from his back, saying he fears retribution from Fu.
A petition drive to recall an elected official is required in the first stage to reach 1 percent of voters in the electoral district, while in the second stage, the number of signatures needs to reach at least 10 percent of voters within 60 days, according to the Public Officials Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法).
“We shall recall Fu and must cancel him. Let us together say ‘no’ to this proxy of the Chinese Communist Party,” Shimmer Hualien activists said in a social media post.
“After the first stage, the second stage is a tougher challenge, so we need more Hualien County residents to stand up to make it happen,” they wrote. “As Fu is facing a recall drive, he does not reflect on last year and how he led KMT legislators to create political turmoil, contravene the Constitution and take part in other harmful actions.”
“Instead, he requested 30 police officers as personal escorts. We shall persist in these efforts to ensure that Fu hears and feels the public anger,” they wrote.
“Most Hualien residents are angry and are no longer afraid of Fu. We are all standing up to face him and show that we are not intimidated by his power anymore,” they said. “We must let him know that what he has done is against the public’s will.”
“People who were oppressed and threatened by Fu in the past have come out to assist in the recall drive,” it added.
A Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) official yesterday quoted President William Lai (賴清德) as saying that all civil society groups that launched the recall drives are at the grassroots level.
“They represent the real voices of civil society and ordinary people. The DPP would respect the autonomy and independent efforts of these groups, and our party members would listen to the public in humble fashion,” the official said. “We must not let them be labeled as tools for political fighting.”
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