A vote to recall Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) is to be held on June 6, the Central Election Commission (CEC) said yesterday after it verified the public endorsements of a recall petition.
The CEC verified the legitimacy of about 400,000 signatures of eligible voters in Kaohsiung, surpassing the threshold of 228,134, or 10 percent of the 2.28 million eligible voters in the mayoral election in November 2018.
By law, a recall vote must be held within 60 days of the CEC verifying the petition.
Photo: CNA
For the recall motion to pass, at least 25 percent of eligible voters — about 571,000 — must vote in favor of the recall measure, in addition to the total number of people voting for the measure exceeding those voting against it.
Led by Wecare Kaohsiung founder Aaron Yin (尹立) and other activist groups in Kaohsiung, the petition was initiated in June last year, after Han, of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), announced his presidential bid less than six months into his mayoral term.
The groups described Han’s presidential bid as a “betrayal,” saying that he was “quitting on Kaohsiung.”
Photo: Ko Yu-hao, Taipei Times
Han has said that the recall effort is politically motivated, but the recall campaigners said that the drive to remove him was based on a grassroots movement, and that Han had hit a resonant chord of indignation and bitterness among Kaohsiung residents.
Meanwhile, the Taipei High Administrative Court yesterday rejected a request by Han supporters to block the recall campaign, although Han’s lawyer, Yeh Ching-yuan (葉慶元), said that he would file an appeal.
Former Kaohsiung Information Bureau director-general Anne Wang (王淺秋) and Yeh on April 8 filed a request asking the court to issue a preliminary injunction to halt the recall campaign.
The court dismissed Han’s complaints that recall campaigners had “jumped the gun in collecting signatures,” ruling that the claim did not demonstrate the need for urgency in issuing a preliminary injunction against the recall and that there was no need to bypass existing procedures being used to handle the issue.
Han’s legal team had filed for an administrative motion, arguing that the groups that initiated the recall petition had breached Article 75 of the Civil Servants and Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法) by collecting signatures before Han had been in office for one year.
The team also sought a review of the CEC’s right to proceed with a recall vote against Han.
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