The recall vote failed. However, the defeat runs far deeper than a lost campaign or a few spared legislators. It reveals a public that either failed to grasp its national security implications — or worse, did not believe the threat was serious enough to act.
Some have attributed the failure to the fact that these lawmakers were initially elected with high vote counts, making their removal naturally difficult. However, this very point is what makes the outcome so troubling. If true, it suggests one of two possibilities: Either their supporters are unaware of the lawmakers’ actions in the Legislative Yuan, or worse, they are aware and they approve of them.
Many who voted “No” cited “monitoring the government” as their reason. To them, I ask: What exactly have your elected legislators done to hold the government accountable? We often say a vote is sacred — but it is understanding what you are voting for that makes it so.
For those of us who had warned this would be difficult, the result is still more disappointing than expected. As I wrote in my letter “Recall is not easy” (July 4, page 8), for a vote to succeed, it must garner more votes than the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate received in the Jan. 13 legislative elections last year.
That did not happen.
Consider this: In last year’s legislative election, DPP candidate Hsu Shu-hua (許淑華) received 76,113 votes, which can be seen as votes against Hsu Chiao-hsin (徐巧芯), who garnered 89,727. In the recall vote, Hsu Chiao-hsin survived with 75,401 “No” votes — a tally lower than her opponent’s vote count from the previous election.
Another example: DPP candidate Hsieh Pei-fen (謝佩芬) received 89,850 votes running against Wang Hung-wei (王鴻薇), who garnered 105,050. In the recall, Wang held on with 86,311 “No” votes.
Both Hsu Chiao-hsin and Wang would have been ousted if all those who had supported Hsu Shu-hua and Hsieh had turned out to vote.
That alone might be the clearest lesson as we head into the next wave of recalls on Aug. 23.
While an overall turnout of about 60 percent is considered high by recall standards, it is sobering that half the electorate chose not to vote in what was arguably the most consequential recall campaign in Taiwan’s history.
For many Taiwanese, what happens inside the Legislative Yuan still feels distant. The chaos, procedural abuse, lightning-fast passage of controversial bills, slashing of the defense budget, indiscriminate rejection of Constitutional Court nominees — none of it has yet touched their daily lives. To them, politics remains background noise.
Worse, there is a deeply rooted perception that “brawling in the legislature” is just part of Taiwanese politics, perhaps even a sign of its vibrancy, however misguided that might be.
Warnings about the pan-blue coalition weakening national security or pushing through laws that mirror Beijing’s playbook are too easily dismissed as partisan bickering.
Allegations of pro-Beijing collusion — and even warnings of a Chinese invasion — have, through repetition and “united front” distraction, come to sound like the boy who cried wolf.
The one moment when the legislature did break through into the public’s daily consciousness was when the pan-blue bloc proposed a NT$10,000 cash handout. Suddenly, people paid attention — a cash sweetener to distract from institutional sabotage. It worked: The majority took the bait or tuned out, and the lawmakers who pushed for it now walk away not just unpunished, but emboldened.
This recall was a referendum on whether voters still believe they have agency when institutions go off course. I do not agree that we failed that test. We failed, rather, to make people see that the institution has gone off course. That means we have more work to do.
I hope the pan-blue camp will not take this as a victory. They won nothing. No new seats. No surge in popularity. The fact that this recall campaign was successfully launched and met the threshold for a vote is an unmistakable sign of real and growing public discontent.
They would be wise to treat this moment not as a triumph, but as a pause, a final warning. If they were to use this opportunity to correct their course and to show they serve the public rather than external interests, they might even earn re-election next time.
However, I am sure that is not going to happen, because rather than serving the common good of Taiwanese, they are carrying out Beijing’s agenda. Puppets do not speak for themselves. Unity among Taiwanese is the last thing the Chinese Communist Party wants, and the pan-blue camp’s behavior reflects exactly that.
Rather than reflect, the pan-blue camp would likely treat this failed recall as a new mandate — a license to pursue, even more ruthlessly, whatever Beijing asks of them. Before long, they would be sending a delegation to China — to report their success, and receive a pat on the back and their next list of marching orders.
John Cheng is a retired businessman from Hong Kong now living in Taiwan.
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