Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei chapter director Huang Lu Chin-ju (黃呂錦茹) on Friday last week was detained and held incommunicado for allegedly agreeing to or instructing the use of forged signatures to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators.
The KMT, supported by the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), on Saturday held a large rally in front of the Presidential Office Building framing it as a fight against “anti-green communists and dictatorship,” and claiming that the DPP is carrying out political purges against opposition parties.
KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said that the DPP has manipulated the judiciary to prosecute and criminally charge KMT members, calling it “judicial injustice” and the “darkest day in Taiwan’s democracy.”
Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) of the KMT called for prosecutors to not be “political tools” of the government.
Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said it is unfair to “only prosecute the blue and not the green.”
Several KMT legislators said the detention of Huang is “against the proportionality principle.” Seven-time KMT Legislator Lai Shyh-bao (賴士葆) said that “even if they [recall proposal initiators] made a mistake, it is only forgery ... which has always been punished very lightly,” while KMT Legislator Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強) repeatedly asked Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau Director-General Chen Pai-li (陳白立) whether the bureau also searched the DPP headquarters.
However, all of them neglected the “proportionality principle” and failed to answer why among 35 petitions to recall KMT legislators, only 12 cases of signatures from deceased people were found, while among 17 proposals to recall DPP legislators, 1,784 cases of signatures from deceased people were found.
Two former KMT members even said that their names were used as recall proposal initiators without their consent.
The argument behind the KMT’s rally on Saturday is clearly untenable. Ironically, the ability to organize a large public rally demonstrated that the government is not a dictatorship, in sharp contrast to how countless Taiwanese were killed or imprisoned during the decades-long White Terror era during the rule of former presidents Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) and his son Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國), both of the KMT.
Moreover, the KMT is deliberately avoiding the real issue — the number of suspected forged signatures of deceased people in their petitions is about 150 times that of the petitions to recall 35 KMT legislators — by prevaricating and trying to undermine public confidence in judicial independence.
The KMT has also learned from the TPP to frame any prosecution against its members as “political persecution” to gain sympathy or fuel contempt toward the DPP-led government, mainly to help save its legislators from being recalled, but voters are unlikely to be fooled so easily. Civic groups’ recall campaigns against KMT lawmakers have already set a good example of how signatures can be collected with diligence and integrity, in clear contrast to the KMT-led recall campaigns.
A few weeks ago in Kaohsiung, tech mogul turned political pundit Robert Tsao (曹興誠) joined Western Washington University professor Chen Shih-fen (陳時奮) for a public forum in support of Taiwan’s recall campaign. Kaohsiung, already the most Taiwanese independence-minded city in Taiwan, was not in need of a recall. So Chen took a different approach: He made the case that unification with China would be too expensive to work. The argument was unusual. Most of the time, we hear that Taiwan should remain free out of respect for democracy and self-determination, but cost? That is not part of the usual script, and
Behind the gloating, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) must be letting out a big sigh of relief. Its powerful party machine saved the day, but it took that much effort just to survive a challenge mounted by a humble group of active citizens, and in areas where the KMT is historically strong. On the other hand, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) must now realize how toxic a brand it has become to many voters. The campaigners’ amateurism is what made them feel valid and authentic, but when the DPP belatedly inserted itself into the campaign, it did more harm than good. The
For nearly eight decades, Taiwan has provided a home for, and shielded and nurtured, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). After losing the Chinese Civil War in 1949, the KMT fled to Taiwan, bringing with it hundreds of thousands of soldiers, along with people who would go on to become public servants and educators. The party settled and prospered in Taiwan, and it developed and governed the nation. Taiwan gave the party a second chance. It was Taiwanese who rebuilt order from the ruins of war, through their own sweat and tears. It was Taiwanese who joined forces with democratic activists
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) held a news conference to celebrate his party’s success in surviving Saturday’s mass recall vote, shortly after the final results were confirmed. While the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) would have much preferred a different result, it was not a defeat for the DPP in the same sense that it was a victory for the KMT: Only KMT legislators were facing recalls. That alone should have given Chu cause to reflect, acknowledge any fault, or perhaps even consider apologizing to his party and the nation. However, based on his speech, Chu showed
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