The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) have continued to exchange words over the possibility of mass recall election campaigns directed at each other.
The controversy began on Saturday, when DPP caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) called for election recall campaigns against 41 opposition lawmakers, a proposal that the DPP and other senior DPP politicians were quick to distance themselves from.
Members of the KMT, including caucus deputy secretary-general Wang Hung-wei (王鴻薇) on Sunday said that the party would launch its own campaigns to “counter” the DPP.
Photo: Huang Hsu-lei, Taipei Times
On Tuesday, KMT Legislator Lai Shyh-bao (賴士葆) told reporters that his party would initiate a campaign to recall 38 DPP lawmakers, but this was later dismissed by senior KMT figures.
“We have not raised [the issue of] election recall campaigns aimed at any DPP lawmakers,” KMT caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) said on Wednesday.
KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) on the same day said that his party’s “fundamental attitude” to any potential recall campaigns was to “prepare for war, but not ask for war.”
“If they do not attack us, we will not attack them,” Chu said.
Also on Wednesday, DPP Legislator Wang Shih-chien (王世堅) said that he “personally opposes this kind of hostile election recall campaigning.”
“No serious lawmaker” would care about “that kind of thing,” he said.
Lawmakers elected by voters from a specific district — as opposed to legislators-at-large, who are elected on a national ticket — might be subject to recall votes under the Public Officials Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法).
Recall elections that result in the dismissal of lawmakers are relatively uncommon.
In 2021, Chen Po-wei (陳柏惟), then a part of the Taiwan Statebuilding Party, became the first and thus far only member of the Legislative Yuan to be removed from office through a recall election.
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