Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) members yesterday expressed mixed feelings about DPP Chairman Su Tseng-chang’s (蘇貞昌) plan to try to recall President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers, which he announced during the “Fury” (火大) rally in Taipei on Sunday. The government said such efforts were unlikely to succeed.
The reasoning behind the plan is legitimate because Ma’s governance has been poor, some DPP figures said, but others were concerned about the political ramifications the move could have and the difficulty of achieving the recall.
DPP spokesperson Lin Chun-hsien (林俊憲) said the party is still working out how to proceed with the plan and has not decided which KMT lawmakers to try to recall, but added that it would try to achieve what Su said would be a bid to replace “incompetent government officials” and “irresponsible lawmakers.”
The DPP has to wait until Feb. 1 to launch a bid to recall lawmakers and May 20 for a bid to recall Ma, since regulations do not permit such actions until a politician has completed one year of their term.
DPP Central Executive Committee member Hung Chih-kune (洪智坤) supports the initiative, saying it was what the people wanted and would unite the party.
Hung was unconcerned about the high threshold for recalling the president — which has to be proposed by at least a quarter of the legislature and agreed to by at least two-thirds of members before passing a national referendum — because “an opposition party is obliged to apply pressure to the ruling party” and Taiwanese “no longer have the patience to wait three more years for Ma to turn the country around.”
Recalling a lawmaker is not as difficult, but still requires at least 2 percent of the total electorate in the relevant electoral district to propose such a move and a petition signed by at least 13 percent of voters, before being approved by a simple majority in the constituency.
However, Hung said the “China factor” would still be the deciding issue in major elections as it was responsible for marginalizing Taiwan internationally, eroding its sovereignty, hollowing out its economy and jeopardizing free speech.
The KMT’s argument that a recall would be socially destabilizing, is unconvincing because the current political situation is “extremely stable” due to the KMT’s dominance of the administrative and legislative branches, he said.
Former DPP legislator Lin Cho-shui (林濁水) said the recall plan was more of a political statement than a practical goal because it would be very difficult to achieve, adding that the DPP should instead focus on presenting its policy on pension reform and anti-media monopoly.
Former DPP legislator Julian Kuo (郭正亮) said that recalling KMT lawmakers and Ma would both be difficult.
The KMT lawmakers the DPP would most likely target are those from constituencies in northern Taiwan who earned landslide victories in the last legislative elections, including Wu Yu-sheng (吳育昇), who beat the DPP candidate in his constituency last year by 17,696 votes, Kuo said.
It would be almost impossible to recall those legislators, he said.
Meanwhile, Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) said the DPP has little chance of passing a proposal to recall Ma in the legislature because the threshold for doing so is very high.
The DPP and the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) hold a total of 43 seats in the 113-seat legislature, short of the two-thirds needed to pass a motion to recall Ma.
“They [the DPP and the TSU] can submit a motion to recall the president. There doesn’t seem much likelihood that the proposal will clear the legislature,” Wang said.
Meanwhile, Executive Yuan Secretary-General Steven Chen (陳士魁) said he respected the DPP’s right to free speech, but would like to remind the party that the Cabinet has embarked on reforms to address the issues raised at the Fury rally.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
CHINA REACTS: The patrol and reconnaissance plane ‘transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,’ the 7th Fleet said, while Taipei said it saw nothing unusual The US 7th Fleet yesterday said that a US Navy P-8A Poseidon flew through the Taiwan Strait, a day after US and Chinese defense heads held their first talks since November 2022 in an effort to reduce regional tensions. The patrol and reconnaissance plane “transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,” the 7th Fleet said in a news release. “By operating within the Taiwan Strait in accordance with international law, the United States upholds the navigational rights and freedoms of all nations.” In a separate statement, the Ministry of National Defense said that it monitored nearby waters and airspace as the aircraft
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique