As last month dawned, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was in a good position. The recall campaigns had strong momentum, polling showed many Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers at risk of recall and even the KMT was bracing for losing seats while facing a tsunami of voter fraud investigations.
Polling pointed to some of the recalls being a lock for victory. Though in most districts the majority was against recalling their lawmaker, among voters “definitely” planning to vote, there were double-digit margins in favor of recall in at least five districts, with three districts near or above 20 percent in favor.
The final results were staggering, with swings as high as over 30 points. Voter turnout among those previously in favor of the recalls faltered, while those against the recalls surged.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
In late June Formosa polling, confidence in President William Lai (賴清德) was at 45 percent, and satisfaction in his administration about the same, both roughly tied with those feeling the opposite. By late last month, satisfaction with his administration plunged by 10.1 percent, and confidence in him personally dropped by 7.8 percent.
In just one month, Lai and his administration had become unambiguously unpopular for the first time since taking office.
There are other factors that likely played a part in the recall losses, including the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) effective get-out-the-vote capacity, the NT$10,000 handouts and even the weather. Yet even combined, they do not even come close to explaining the massive 30-plus point swings among likely voters in key districts or the sudden, sharp drop in Lai’s popularity.
The only significant change in those last few weeks that could explain such a massive swing was Lai’s disastrous decision as DPP chair on June 28 to formally commit the party and their resources to backing the recall campaigns.
TOXIC DPP?
Why is the DPP so toxic to many voters that they surged to the polls to block the recalls?
On the surface, some recall-specific elements turned the electorate, but they would not have if deeper issues were not at play.
For months, the KMT — leaving aside hyperbolic accusations of a Lai dictatorship — had raised two reasonable points: that this was an abuse of the intent of the recall laws, and an attempt to overturn last year’s election.
Recall campaigners reasonably pointed out that they were the citizens the recall laws were written for to oust politicians acting against the public interest, and any successful recalls would return the choice to the electorate in a byelection.
Try as they might, the KMT was failing to portray this as a plot by the DPP because, until June 28, that was not true. The recalls were led by over 30 amateur civic society groups with the only support coming from the DPP indirect, or on the individual level.
After June 28, the KMT could legitimately and unambiguously make the claim that the DPP was supporting overturning the 2024 elections. Even if their claims that the entire thing was a DPP plot from the beginning were false, they no longer seemed so far-fetched, and individual DPP politician’s early comments in favor of the recalls — such as whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) — took on a more sinister tone for many.
RISING DISTRUST
A large portion of the electorate views the DPP with suspicion, beyond the core partisan base that will hate the party regardless. It is these distrustful swing voters who surged to the polls.
Some of this distrust is natural voter fatigue after nine years of DPP rule, but there are many cases where it has done itself no favors.
There have been scandals that were handled badly. For example, at best, the egg importation scandal was a result of gross incompetence that the Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) administration defended for far too long.
Though common practice in Taiwan prior to the Tsai administration, attention was drawn to the revolving door between politics, government, party positions and appointments to run state-owned enterprises, especially by people associated with the DPP’s powerful and secretive New Tide faction. Many were disappointed when scandals erupted connected to these cases.
The Lai administration has done little to alleviate these suspicions, doubling down on promoting figures from his own New Tide faction to even more positions of power.
Suspicions are further raised by the party’s ability to suppress dissent within it. Formally a party of colorful and opinionated politicians, today there is a sterile uniformity.
Ironically, the script has switched, and it is the KMT that has far more open debate and internal dissent, though they still have a remarkable ability to unify when the chips are down once the debate is over.
The only DPP politician left standing willing to offer open dissent is lawmaker Wang Shi-chien (王世堅), who is currently being pilloried for opposing the DPP supporting the recalls. In 2022, his blunt criticisms of the DPP’s campaign strategy also turned out to be prescient.
Though there are reports of behind-the-scenes debate, the lack of open dissent and debate furthers the perception of the party being secretive and undemocratic.
Many DPP campaign promises were never realized, even when progress was made. Wage growth has improved, but only anemically. The housing market has cooled, but prices are still far out of reach for most people. The minimum monthly wage is up, but has never reached the promised NT$30,000.
Even on signature issues, the DPP failed promises. The 2015 pledge to raise military spending to three percent of GDP has not materialized even after nine years in power.
LOSING ‘RESIST CHINA, PROTECT TAIWAN’
The recall campaigns’ primary complaints boiled down to the KMT acting against the interests of the country in ways that benefit the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) desire to undermine and weaken Taiwan’s security and unity.
These same fears led to DPP landslide victories in 2016 and 2020, under the slogan “resist China, protect Taiwan” (抗中保台).
The slogan neatly summarized the guiding principles guiding how the president would form the government, deal with China and how lawmakers would approach legislation.
Then the DPP blew it.
In the 2022 local elections, the DPP ran on the same slogan.
Local governments plan sewage lines and road maintenance. In the few areas where “resisting China” could make sense in local government — such as hardening infrastructure or contingency preparation and planning — were ignored in DPP campaigning, rendering the slogan completely meaningless in that context.
Misusing the slogan and “resisting China” was viewed as a manipulation of voter sentiment on a popular issue for their own cynical political gain.
Voters hate feeling manipulated, and that election was a disaster for the DPP. They lost considerable trust and goodwill over the issue, and with it their ability to ride that slogan to victory.
Resisting and responding to the very real threat that the CCP poses and standing up for Taiwan remains popular, and for many, the authenticity and sincerity of the recall campaigners gave them considerable momentum. Polling showed that those opposing them had been unenthusiastic until the DPP formally got involved.
Enough people still believe the DPP stands for their interests that Lai was elected president.
But less than half of the population voted for the DPP, and they have lost the trust of many swing voters.
President Lai is finally taking action on many of the promises that led to two landslide victories for Tsai, but now he has to do so faced with widespread public distrust and a newly emboldened opposition-controlled legislature.
The KMT is falsely claiming victory over the recalls. It was not a vote for them; it was a vote against the DPP.
The recalls were a disaster for the KMT as well, and served as a warning to them as much as the DPP, which we will examine next.
Donovan’s Deep Dives is a regular column by Courtney Donovan Smith (石東文) who writes in-depth analysis on everything about Taiwan’s political scene and geopolitics. Donovan is also the central Taiwan correspondent at ICRT FM100 Radio News, co-publisher of Compass Magazine, co-founder Taiwan Report (report.tw) and former chair of the Taichung American Chamber of Commerce. Follow him on X: @donovan_smith.
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