TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Kuomintang (KMT) members of the Legislative Yuan are reportedly considering amending Taiwan’s law governing the recall of elected officials, allegedly in an effort to thwart an ongoing campaign to oust Keelung Mayor Hsieh Kuo-liang (謝國樑).
According to Article 90 of the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act, for a recall vote to be successful, at least 25% of the district’s electorate must vote “agree” to the recall vote, while also outnumbering the “disagree” votes.
However, some KMT legislators are seeking to change the law, by adding an additional requirement that the “agree” votes must to also surpass the number of votes that originally elected an official to office, reported UDN.
Legislator Hsu Yu-chen (許宇甄) is a KMT lawmaker pushing for the amendment. Hsu claims that the current threshold for recall of an elected official is too low.
Hsu argues that the law in its current form makes it too easy to expel officials from office, and that the measure has been abused as a partisan political tool that wastes public resource. She also argues that an amendment should be made to forbid launching recall campaigns within the first year of an elected official’s term.
If the measure moves forward and passes in the next legislative session, it will likely affect the ongoing recall campaign in Keelung targeting Mayor Hsieh.
The recall campaign, organized by the Shanhai Citizen’s Movement to Take Down Liang, announced on May 3 that the Central Election Commission (CEC) approved the signatures for the first phase of the recall efforts. The group gathered over 3,000 signatures, or 1% of the electorate, which will allow the recall campaign to proceed to phase two.
The group announced that the second phase of petitioning for signatures will begin on May 11. For the second phase, the group needs to gather almost 31,000 votes, or 10% of the electorate in order for the CEC to approve and schedule a public vote.
The campaign to recall Hsieh was launched in March, after a wave of public dissatisfaction was stirred by a scandal involving the proprietorship of the E-Square Mall in downtown Keelung.
