The Central Election Commission (CEC) on Friday announced that recall motions targeting 24 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers and Hsinchu Mayor Ann Kao (高虹安) have been approved, and that a recall vote would take place on July 26.
Of the recall motions against 35 KMT legislators, 31 were reviewed by the CEC after they exceeded the second-phase signature thresholds. Twenty-four were approved, five were asked to submit additional signatures to make up for invalid ones and two are still being reviewed.
The mass recall vote targeting so many lawmakers at once is unprecedented in Taiwan’s political history. If the KMT loses more than six seats and they are filled by the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) candidates in the by-election, the DPP would secure a majority and be able to reshape parliamentary decisions. However, if the KMT loses fewer than six, it might be emboldened to push through its agendas more aggressively, disregarding public opinion.
Of the total 113 legislative seats, the DPP holds 51, the KMT has 52, the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) holds eight and KMT-affiliated independents have two. The KMT and the TPP since last year have teamed up in the legislature, passing bills and cutting budgets in efforts to expand legislative power and weaken the executive power of President William Lai’s (賴清德) administration.
Many civic groups see the KMT-TPP partnership’s legislative decisions as a major threat to national development and security, as government budgets were arbitrarily cut and frozen, and defense and foreign policies are being hindered. Additionally, several KMT officials and legislators have met with Chinese officials without explanation, prompting people to suspect that China might be influencing their offensive against the government. As a result, the recall campaigns have also become a civic movement against pro-China politicians.
The KMT’s countermeasure of launching its own recalls all failed due to a lack of signatures and led to many of its local chapters’ personnel being indicted for allegedly forging signatures, including those of many deceased people. It also passed bills to increase national holidays and military personnel’s salaries in an attempt to win votes and fight back against what the KMT calls a “malicious recall driven by the DPP’s dictatorship.”
The KMT has not apologized for its unethical and problematic alleged forgery. Instead, it insists that it and the TPP are targets of the Lai administration’s “political persecution” and the judicial system is being manipulated to target them. Its latest attempt is trying to mislead the public into believing that the repeated signatures from the first phase and second phase petitions, which have been removed according to the law, could have been “forged” by civic groups, reinforcing its claim that the judicial system is unjust.
Some KMT legislators are also supporting the TPP’s proposal to abolish the Control Yuan, despite it being against their party’s charter, which upholds the five-branch Constitution, in hopes of winning votes from TPP supporters to save their seats.
Meanwhile, the DPP has fully supported the civic groups’ recall efforts. However, for the recalls to succeed, the number of “yes” votes must exceed one-quarter of the eligible voters in the constituency, as well as opposing votes, which remains a significant challenge. Voter turnout would be a crucial factor affecting the outcome.
As civic groups have been waiting for the CEC to give them the green light, they must keep up the momentum in the coming month, refining their arguments to attract neutral voters and carefully avoiding smear campaigns. The DPP must also maintain a delicate distance from the civic groups, supporting them, but not taking control, or it might risk spurring more “no” votes.
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