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Kaohsiung Voters Decide Han's Future

Source：CW

On June 6th, the people of Kaohsiung vote on whether or not to recall mayor Han. Will Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu become the first special municipality mayor to be successfully recalled in the history of Taiwan?

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By Rebecca Lin, Johann Tsai, Chen-Hua Chen, Andy Lin, Daniel Kao, Yu-Ting Huang, Yu-Hsin Lee
web only
2020-06-06

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The Requirements for Recall

On June 6th, Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu became the first politician in the history of the Republic of China to have been a mayoral candidate, a presidential candidate, and the subject of a recall vote, all within two years.

In order for an elected official to be successfully recalled, there are two conditions that must be met. First, the number of votes in favor of recall must surpass the number of votes in opposition. Second, the number of votes in favor of recall must surpass one quarter of the eligible voting population of the electoral district.

In Kaohsiung, there are nearly 2.3 million eligible voters in Kaohsiung's 38 districts. To recall Han, Kaohsiung needs to cast 574,996 ballots in support of the recall.

The Most Contentious Presidential Candidate

This is not the first time Han has faced a recall vote. In 1994, as a member of the Legislative Yuan, he faced a recall vote along with three other KMT members, including firebrand Hung Hsiu-chu. Han came closest to being recalled out of the four members, but the number of ballots fell short of the threshold, allowing Han to remain in office.

Han’s supporters have rallied under a single banner: "a man of the people", sparking the nationwide phenomenon known as “Hánliú”. Although Han remained out of politics for over ten years, he returned to notoriety in 2018, becoming the first KMT mayor of Kaohsiung in 20 years. The following year, he represented the Kuomintang in a bid to unseat incumbent Tsai Ing-wen in the 2020 presidential election.

Of all his controversies, none garnered more notoriety than his visit to the Hong Kong Liaison Office. In March 2019, Han visited Hong Kong as the Mayor of Kaohsiung, where he was treated like royalty, becoming “the first democratically-elected Taiwanese politician to set foot in the Liaison Office”. This event brewed up a storm in Taiwan... (Click here to read full story)