Taipei Deputy Mayor Lee Ssu-chuan (李四川) publicly opposed the recall movement, even accompanying Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Wang Hung-wei (王鴻薇) in campaigning on the streets at Shuanglian Market in Taipei’s Zhongshan District (中山) on June 15.
“If a project is done well, why would you tear it down and start over?” Lee said. “It only needs to be rebuilt if it was done poorly. How can you justify recalling someone just because they are from a different political party?”
While studying structural dynamics at National Taiwan University’s Department of Civil Engineering, the professor often reminded us: “Completing the construction of a bridge is only the first step. What’s truly important is long-term monitoring and risk assessment.”
Bridges age, load capacities change and cracks appear — these are all issues that engineers must constantly keep in mind. Sometimes repairs and reinforcements are required before any incident even occurs.
Our professor also said: “The most dangerous aspect of engineering is not the potential for mistakes; it is when no one dares take responsibility for a mistake that has already been made.”
After entering education, I increasingly came to realize that my professor’s words also hold true for democratic systems.
A democratic system cannot be left unattended after it is established. It is much like a bridge — if it is not regularly maintained and inspected, there is a risk that it could collapse. Within a democratic system, recalls are a right and a responsibility for citizens to correct themselves. In the event that an elected representative begins to drift away from the public’s will — even focusing solely on their own personal interests or that of their political party — then voters undoubtedly have the right and the duty to call them into question, or use their ballots to voice their distrust.
Lee’s use of engineering logic to reject the recall movement is a flawed analogy built upon his own political bias. When a structure is defective, it must be reinforced — likewise, when an elected representative deviates from public opinion, citizens can correct them. The recall is the democratic system’s corrective mechanism, designed to help citizens do just that.
The notion that an elected representative’s term must be completed in full and should not be cut short by a recall is contradictory and greatly harmful to democratic education.
The right to recall is guaranteed under the Constitution and is a mechanism essential for the public to hold their elected representatives to account. Our support for the recall campaign is about returning power to the hands of the public to allow for the healthy operation of our democratic system. When someone stands up and declares that a representative has gone off course and no longer meets the public’s expectations, they are committing a clear-headed and courageous act — a pillar supporting a functional democracy. Recalls are an unfortunate, but necessary method for the public to correct our nation’s course. It is our democratic system undergoing self-repair. Only when the public is willing to take part in its oversight would the bridge of democracy remain stable and endure.
Pan Wei-yiu is a policymaker at the Taiwan Nation Alliance and president of the Union of Taiwanese Teachers.
Translated by Kyra Gustavsen
A failure by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to respond to Israel’s brilliant 12-day (June 12-23) bombing and special operations war against Iran, topped by US President Donald Trump’s ordering the June 21 bombing of Iranian deep underground nuclear weapons fuel processing sites, has been noted by some as demonstrating a profound lack of resolve, even “impotence,” by China. However, this would be a dangerous underestimation of CCP ambitions and its broader and more profound military response to the Trump Administration — a challenge that includes an acceleration of its strategies to assist nuclear proxy states, and developing a wide array
Eating at a breakfast shop the other day, I turned to an old man sitting at the table next to mine. “Hey, did you hear that the Legislative Yuan passed a bill to give everyone NT$10,000 [US$340]?” I said, pointing to a newspaper headline. The old man cursed, then said: “Yeah, the Chinese Nationalist Party [KMT] canceled the NT$100 billion subsidy for Taiwan Power Co and announced they would give everyone NT$10,000 instead. “Nice. Now they are saying that if electricity prices go up, we can just use that cash to pay for it,” he said. “I have no time for drivel like
Twenty-four Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers are facing recall votes on Saturday, prompting nearly all KMT officials and lawmakers to rally their supporters over the past weekend, urging them to vote “no” in a bid to retain their seats and preserve the KMT’s majority in the Legislative Yuan. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which had largely kept its distance from the civic recall campaigns, earlier this month instructed its officials and staff to support the recall groups in a final push to protect the nation. The justification for the recalls has increasingly been framed as a “resistance” movement against China and
Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) reportedly told the EU’s top diplomat that China does not want Russia to lose in Ukraine, because the US could shift its focus to countering Beijing. Wang made the comment while meeting with EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas on July 2 at the 13th China-EU High-Level Strategic Dialogue in Brussels, the South China Morning Post and CNN reported. Although contrary to China’s claim of neutrality in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, such a frank remark suggests Beijing might prefer a protracted war to keep the US from focusing on