After nine days of holidays for the Lunar New Year, government agencies and companies are to reopen for operations today, including the Legislative Yuan. Many civic groups are expected to submit their recall petitions this week, aimed at removing many Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers from their seats.
Since December last year, the KMT and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) passed three controversial bills to paralyze the Constitutional Court, alter budgetary allocations and make recalling elected officials more difficult by raising the threshold.
The amendments aroused public concern and discontent, sparking calls to recall KMT legislators. After KMT and TPP legislators again hastily pushed through hundreds of illogical and error-ridden motions to slash the government budget without discussion just days before the holiday began late last month, calls to recall KMT legislators who are “unfit to serve” grew stronger.
Civil society rose up and launched mass recall campaigns against most KMT legislators (the TPP only has at-large legislators who cannot be recalled), out of concerns, fear and anger that their actions are meant to sabotage government operations and dismantle Taiwan’s stability and democracy, possibly in collusion with the Chinese Communist Party.
Perhaps out of fear over the overwhelming response to the mass recall, the legislature at 4:47pm the day before the Lunar New Year holiday began suddenly sent to the Executive Yuan its amendments to the Public Officials Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法), which would make recalls more difficult. Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) had said the Cabinet would return the bill, asking the legislature to reconsider it.
The motion for reconsideration must be sent to the legislature within 10 days (by today). The legislature is expected to reject the motion and send the bill back to the president for promulgation. Petitions to formally recall elected officials can only be accepted a year after they took office, which was on Saturday. Many people believe the tightened recall threshold would take effect by the middle of this month.
By sending the bill to the Cabinet only an hour before the holiday started, KMT lawmakers might have believed they succeeded in their “sneak attack” to counter recall efforts, but they have instead inadvertently started the countdown to their recall, as civic groups made greater efforts in the limited timeframe to collect as many signatures as they could during the holiday, for formal submission this week.
The ruling Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) attitude toward the campaigns remains ambiguous, as it is trying to walk a fine line between offering support and not taking charge. DPP legislative caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) called for a “mass recall” of KMT legislators, while President William Lai (賴清德) took a mild tone, urging respect for civic groups’ autonomy.
As civic groups reported that they have received signatures exceeding the minimum requirements of the first-phase recall petition for more than a dozen KMT lawmakers, KMT officials have also announced plans to launch their own recalls to “counter” the DPP, which could cause a wave of “revenge recalls.”
Recall campaigns and counter-campaigns are likely to bring about political turmoil and escalate into a slugfest. Groups need to collect more signatures within 60 days if the first-phase recall petition is passed, while the KMT and TPP frame them as driven and sponsored by the DPP, and launch their own attacks. In the coming days, the DPP must constantly re-evaluate and adjust their role if they wish to see the campaigns succeed.
Civic groups must step up their game to persuade neutral voters that their cause is logical and necessary to protect the common values of Taiwan, a constitutional democracy, explaining the impact of the KMT and TPP amendments in simple and objective terms to the public, who are unfamiliar with political details, while reminding them of their power to make a difference, or they might easily be labeled as “troublemakers” causing instability and distrust in society.
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