Voters in Kaohsiung, a city in southern Taiwan, on Saturday voted in support of a recall motion against the city's mayor Han Kuo-yu, making him the first popularly elected mayor to be recalled in Taiwan.

Data from the city's election commission, quoted by local media, showed that more than 574,996 votes, the recall's vote threshold, were for the motion to remove Han from office.

Han conceded defeat in a TV broadcast.

Han, aged 62, has been accused of, among others, announcing to run for the island leader as Kuomintang (KMT) candidate just four months after being elected Kaohsiung's mayor, and of being unable to solve the city's problems. Han lost the election in mid-January to Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) leader Tsai Ing-wen.

Being elected in November 2018, Han has been mayor of the city for a total of 18 months.

Han will be barred from running for mayor for four years if he does not lodge a legal challenge against the recall results and a by-election will be held within three months. Before that, an official will be appointed to fill Han's post temporarily.

But if Han chooses to challenge the results, according to the election commission, the by-election would have to wait until the issue was resolved.

This was not the first time Han faced a recall. He was among four Kuomintang (KMT) representatives involved in another recall motion in New Taipei City for supporting the construction of a fourth nuclear power plant on the island. This motion was unsuccessful.