TAIPEI (TVBS News) — Taiwan confronts unprecedented political turmoil as mass recall campaigns target 24 Kuomintang (KMT, 國民黨) opposition legislators and suspended Hsinchu City Mayor Kao Hung-an (高虹安). The Central Election Commission (CEC, 中選會) Taiwan's election oversight body announced Tuesday (July 22) that voters will head to the polls Saturday (July 26). The sweeping recall effort reflects deepening divisions between Taiwan's ruling and opposition parties in the island's democratic system.
The CEC released detailed voter numbers and one-fourth agreement thresholds required for each contested district across Taiwan. Hung Meng-kai's (洪孟楷) district faces the steepest challenge with 101,265 agreement votes needed, while Huang Chien-pin's (黃建賓) district requires the lowest threshold at 28,347 votes. Article 90 of the Public Officials Election and Recall Act mandates that recalls succeed only when agreement votes exceed disagreement votes and surpass one-fourth of total registered voters.
Taipei's Wang Hung-wei (王鴻薇) faces 274,312 registered voters and needs 68,578 agreement votes for her recall to succeed. New Taipei City's Yeh Yuan-chih (葉元之) requires 57,761 votes from his district's 231,042 eligible voters. Taoyuan City's Niu Hsu-ting (牛煦庭) needs 88,517 votes from 354,065 voters, while Taichung City's Huang Chien-hao (黃健豪) requires 93,587 votes from 374,348 registered voters.
Hualien County's Fu Kun-chi (傅崐萁) faces 191,367 registered voters and requires 47,842 agreement votes for recall. Hsinchu City's Cheng Cheng-chien (鄭正鈐) needs 89,266 votes from his district's 357,063 eligible voters. The CEC clarified that recalls exclude plains and mountain indigenous legislators Taiwan's special representation system for aboriginal communities, creating voter number discrepancies in Hsinchu City's recall calculations. ◼
