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.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) challenges and ignores the international rules-based order by violating Taiwanese airspace using a high-flying drone: This incident is a multi-layered challenge, including a lawfare challenge against the First Island Chain, the US, and the world. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) defines lawfare as “controlling the enemy through the law or using the law to constrain the enemy.” Chen Yu-cheng (陳育正), an associate professor at the Graduate Institute of China Military Affairs Studies, at Taiwan’s Fu Hsing Kang College (National Defense University), argues the PLA uses lawfare to create a precedent and a new de facto legal
In the first year of his second term, US President Donald Trump continued to shake the foundations of the liberal international order to realize his “America first” policy. However, amid an atmosphere of uncertainty and unpredictability, the Trump administration brought some clarity to its policy toward Taiwan. As expected, bilateral trade emerged as a major priority for the new Trump administration. To secure a favorable trade deal with Taiwan, it adopted a two-pronged strategy: First, Trump accused Taiwan of “stealing” chip business from the US, indicating that if Taipei did not address Washington’s concerns in this strategic sector, it could revisit its Taiwan
Chile has elected a new government that has the opportunity to take a fresh look at some key aspects of foreign economic policy, mainly a greater focus on Asia, including Taiwan. Still, in the great scheme of things, Chile is a small nation in Latin America, compared with giants such as Brazil and Mexico, or other major markets such as Colombia and Argentina. So why should Taiwan pay much attention to the new administration? Because the victory of Chilean president-elect Jose Antonio Kast, a right-of-center politician, can be seen as confirming that the continent is undergoing one of its periodic political shifts,
Taiwan’s long-term care system has fallen into a structural paradox. Staffing shortages have led to a situation in which almost 20 percent of the about 110,000 beds in the care system are vacant, but new patient admissions remain closed. Although the government’s “Long-term Care 3.0” program has increased subsidies and sought to integrate medical and elderly care systems, strict staff-to-patient ratios, a narrow labor pipeline and rising inflation-driven costs have left many small to medium-sized care centers struggling. With nearly 20,000 beds forced to remain empty as a consequence, the issue is not isolated management failures, but a far more
RSS