Taiwan's Kaohsiung city votes to recall mayor Han Kuo-yu, after failed presidential bid

(Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons)

The city of Taiwan's Kaohsiung will vote on June 6 to recall their mayor Han Kuo-yu after just 18 months in office. He could be Taiwan’s first city mayor to be recalled.

A simple majority is all it takes for the recall to succeed, which means more than a quarter of the city’s 2.3 million elligible voters or 575,000 voters must vote in favour of the recall motion.

Han lost favour with the people when he accepted his political party Kuomintang's (KMT) offer to run for presidential elections merely months after being elected to office in Novermber 2018. 

Also he ended up losing the January presidential elections to the Tsai Ing-wen by a landslide margin.

What irked the people was his absence from office for nearly three months as he prepared his campaign for the presidential election. They accuse Han of not doing anything for the city while he held the Mayor's office and betrayed the trust of his voters when he announced his candidature for presidency. He had promised to not leave the city if he were elected.

A civic group 'WeCare Kaohsiung' started the petition for his ouster which got approval of the the election commission.