24 KMT lawmakers, Hsinchu Mayor to face recall votes on July 26

Taipei, June 20 (CNA) A total of 24 lawmakers from Taiwan's main opposition Kuomintang (KMT), along with suspended Hsinchu Mayor Ann Kao (高虹安), will face recall votes on July 26, the Central Election Commission (CEC) said Friday evening.

The 24 lawmakers facing the recall votes are KMT legislative caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅崐萁), lawmakers from Taipei Wang Hung-wei (王鴻薇), Hsu Chiao-hsin (許巧芯), Lee Yen-hsiu (李彥秀), Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強) and Lai Shyh-bao (賴士葆), as well as others across Taiwan, according to the CEC announcement.

In addition, Kao, who was elected in 2022 as the first local government head from the Taiwan People's Party, but left the party last year amid a corruption scandal, will also face a vote to determine whether she remains in office, the announcement said.

Kao has been suspended from the position since July 2024 after she was sentenced by a court to seven years and four months in prison and four years of civil rights suspension due to a corruption case dating back to her time as a lawmaker from 2020-2022. The case is ongoing.

Televised briefings featuring both recall initiators and the targeted lawmakers and official will be held from July 16 to 25, said the announcement which was issued after the top election agency held a meeting to confirm the verification of second-stage signatures for recall initiatives.

Even though CEC head Lee Chin-yung (李進勇) said during a legislative meeting last week his agency expected to confirm the results of 26 recall proposals, an official from the CEC told CNA on Friday that only 24 were approved at the meeting, with two still being verified by local election authorities.

The recall drive against the KMT lawmakers, which was launched by civil society groups and supported by the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), marks an unprecedented campaign to remove nearly all the KMT lawmakers directly elected to Taiwan's Legislature on Jan. 13, 2024.

According to the CEC, recall bids have been launched against 50 lawmakers -- 35 of the KMT's 39 directly elected lawmakers and 15 of the DPP's 38 directly elected lawmakers -- as well as Kao and eight local councilors.

Four proposals targeting KMT lawmakers have already been disqualified by the CEC for falling short of the second-stage signature requirement, while seven others are still pending review.

On the other hand, most of the recall bid against DPP lawmakers failed at the second stage, with only two still within the signature-gathering periods, CEC data showed.

To trigger a recall vote, petitioners must first gather signatures from at least 1 percent of eligible voters in a constituency, and then collect signatures from 10 percent in a second stage, according to Taiwan's Civil Servants Election and Recall Act.