Taiwanese business tycoon Terry Gou has submitted over 1 million signatures on a petition, well above the threshold for him to qualify as an independent candidate in the island's presidential election next January, his campaign office said Thursday.
The 73-year-old founder of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., better known by its trade name Foxconn, was required to collect about 290,000 voter signatures, equivalent to 1.5 percent of eligible voters in the previous 2020 presidential election, between Sept. 19 and Thursday.
The Central Election Commission will examine the submitted signatures and determine whether Gou qualifies as a candidate by Nov. 14.
Gou announced his bid to run in the race as an independent candidate in August after he failed to be nominated by the major opposition Nationalist Party, also known as Kuomintang, which picked New Taipei Mayor Hou Yu-ih, 66, as its official candidate.
The two other major candidates running in the race are front-runner Vice President Lai Ching-te, 64, leader of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, and former Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je, 64, chairman of the opposition Taiwan People's Party.
Chinese authorities have launched a tax probe of the mainland bases of Foxconn, a major Apple Inc. supplier, according to the Global Times, a tabloid affiliated with China's ruling Communist Party.
Gou has already stepped down as a Foxconn board member. In response to the probe, Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council has accused Beijing of attempting to influence the island's presidential election by putting pressure on a specific candidate.
