Kaoshiung City Council Speaker Hsu Kun-yuan was found dead after falling from the 17th floor of his residence at 8:45 pm on Saturday. He was 63 years old.
Shortly before the incident occurred, Hsu had reposted Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu's concession speech on Facebook. In the post, Hsu had written in Chinese, "Who is the winner this time?"
On Saturday, Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu became the first mayor in Taiwan to be recalled. Hsu was known to be a big supporter of Han.
After hearing the news, Han expressed his sadness and called on the public to remain calm. He said that politics is one thing, but life must go on.
Last July, Hsu suffered an eye stroke and had not been in good health ever since. Some media reports have speculated that his death was an apparent suicide following the results of the recall.
In the recall vote, 939,090 people (97.4%) voted in favor of the recall, while only 25,051 (2.6%) voted against. Voter turnout was 42% of eligible voters, significantly higher than the 25% threshold required for the results to be valid.
Hsu was a native of Kaoshiung. In 2010, Hsu became the first speaker of the city council after Kaohsiung city and county merged. He stepped down in 2014 after the Democratic Progressive Party won a majority in the city council. He became speaker again in 2018 when the Kuomintang regained a majority. That was the first time in 33 years that the Kuomintang was in charge of both the city government and the city council.