Poor organization and lack of experience contributed to the failure of Greater Kaohsiung’s Appendectomy Project in two campaigns on election day, activists said yesterday.
Representatives of the group’s Greater Kaohsiung branch bowed in apology to supporters at a press conference. A representative from Greater Kaohsiung surnamed Hsieh (謝小姐) cried quietly throughout the proceedings.
Activists had hoped to take advantage of the nine-in-one elections to collect the signatures necessary to enter the recall campaign’s second phase, setting up tables outside voting sites. However, petitions to recall Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislators Lin Kuo-cheng (林國正) and Huang Chao-shun (黃昭順) failed to reach the threshold of 2 percent of the electorate, with just 3,355 (1.38 percent) signatures collected for Lin and 2,321 (0.8 percent) for Huang.
In contrast, the effort to recall Taipei KMT Legislator Alex Tsai (蔡正元) passed the first threshold in August, breezing past the second threshold on election day with more than 40,000 signatures.
“I was surprised by the result,” said the group’s spokesperson, who is known as “Mr Lin from Taipei” (台北林先生).
He said that people from the relatively “pan-green” Greater Kaohsiung tend to be more enthusiastic about the group’s cause than Taipei residents.
Hsieh attributed the poor results to insufficient experience and organization, with a lack of staff and funding preventing the group from setting up signature-collection booths at all voting sites.
She said volunteer turnover was a key problem, with more than two-thirds of the initial summer student volunteers leaving for other cities during the fall school semester, and most fall volunteers returning to their hometowns to vote, forcing the group to quickly patch together a new team from returning students on election day.
In addition, Greater Kaohsiung volunteers failed to foresee a number of election-day expenses and did not raise any money beforehand, she said.
In contrast, volunteers in Taipei have been raising funds since May, Mr Lin from Taipei said.
Activists promised to continue working to collect signatures until the Dec. 31 deadline, when forms will be destroyed if the threshold remains unattained.
The name Appendectomy Project is a pun on a Mandarin Chinese term for pan-blue camp legislators, lan wei (藍委), which is pronounced the same as the word for “appendix” (闌尾).
Honor guards are to stop performing changing of the guard ceremonies around a statue of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) to avoid “worshiping authoritarianism,” the Ministry of Culture said yesterday. The fate of the bronze statue has long been the subject of fierce and polarizing debate in Taiwan, which has transformed from an autocracy under Chiang into one of Asia’s most vibrant democracies. The changing of the guard each hour at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei is a major tourist attraction, but starting from 9am on Monday, the ceremony is to be moved outdoors to Democracy Boulevard, outside the eponymous blue-and-white memorial
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) supports peaceful unification with China, and President William Lai (賴清德) is “a bit naive” for being a “practical worker for Taiwanese independence,” former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said in an interview published yesterday. Asked about whether the KMT is on the same page as the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) on the issue of Taiwanese independence or unification with China, Ma told the Malaysian Chinese-language newspaper Sin Chew Daily that they are not. While the KMT supports peaceful unification and is against unification by force, the DPP opposes unification as such and
FATAL ILLNESS: Untreated symptoms can rapidly worsen to complications such as high fever, seizures and loss of consciousness, and can be life-threatening, a doctor said Hospitals have been reporting dozens of people with heat-related illnesses every day over the past week, given continuous high daytime temperatures, so recognizing the early signs of heatstroke is crucial in preventing serious complications, a Taipei City Hospital emergency physician said. The Central Weather Administration yesterday issued a heat alert for 19 cities and counties across Taiwan, with temperatures in New Taipei City, Miaoli County and Pingtung County likely to exceed 38°C, and temperatures in 12 cities and counties likely to exceed 36°C for three days straight. More than a dozen people were taken to hospitals for heat-related illnesses every day from
The annual Taipei Summer Festival, which starts today, is to tone down its fireworks displays, the Taipei Department of Information and Tourism said on Monday. Fireworks displays are to be held at the riverside site in Datong District’s (大同) Dadaocheng (大稻埕) area on four days at this year’s festival, with the first today, and then on Wednesday next week, July 31 and Aug. 10, the department said. There were eight displays last year, with the reduction aimed at minimizing inconvenience to local residents, it said. The first three shows, which are all on Wednesdays, are to last for five minutes, while the final