Taiwan is bracing for a political shake-up as a majority of directly elected lawmakers from the main opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) face the prospect of early removal from office in an unprecedented wave of recall votes slated for July 26 and Aug. 23.
The outcome of the public votes targeting 26 KMT lawmakers in the next two months — and potentially five more at later dates — could upend the power structure in the legislature, where the KMT and the smaller Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) currently hold a combined majority.
After denying direct involvement in the recall campaigns for months, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) recently pledged to mobilize its rank-and-file supporters “on the scale of a major national election” to unseat the KMT lawmakers.
Photo: Liao Hsueh-ju, Taipei Times
The DPP’s decision to swing its full support behind the recalls has effectively turned what was a grassroots, civic group-led initiative into a showdown between the two largest political parties.
While campaigners have framed the recalls as an effort to “oppose Communist China” and “defend Taiwan,” some within the DPP have been more candid about the party’s ultimate objective: to regain control of the legislature, which it ceded in the elections in January last year.
“If Taiwan is to take further action to strengthen its security, a crucial step will be to change the current structure and dynamics of the Legislative Yuan,” DPP spokesperson Justin Wu (吳崢) told CNA during a phone interview.
Photo: Luo Kuo-chia, Taipei Times
Wu, who described the upcoming recalls as a “vote of rejection,” said KMT and TPP lawmakers had hampered government efforts to enhance Taiwan’s security by cutting the defense budget.
According to government data, the legislature cut NT$8.4 billion (US$287.18 million) — or roughly 1.3 percent — from the proposed NT$647 billion defense spending for fiscal 2025, along with freezes of nearly NT$90 billion, although some of the frozen funds were later unfrozen.
The KMT, unsurprisingly, has pushed back against the recall campaign.
The recall efforts have been called an act of “injustice” by KMT Vice Chairman Andrew Hsia (夏立言), who said opposition lawmakers had been labeled as Chinese Communist Party collaborators “without a shred of evidence” during a news briefing on Wednesday last week.
Maintaining checks and balances in the government is critical in a democracy, Hsia said, adding that the party would do its utmost to help its lawmakers retain their seats.
Meanwhile, KMT Legislator-at-large Ko Ju-chun (葛如鈞) condemned the recalls against his colleagues as a politically motivated campaign orchestrated by the DPP, accusing the ruling party of abusing the system to silence opposition voices.
To regain control of the legislature, the DPP would first need to unseat at least 12 KMT lawmakers in the recall votes, giving its 51-member caucus an absolute majority while the legislature is temporarily reduced to 101 members, said Su Tzu-chiao (蘇子喬), a political science professor at Soochow University.
The DPP has the advantage of running a purely offensive campaign, given that none of the dozen recall initiatives launched against its own lawmakers made it onto the ballot.
Su said that the DPP would then need to win at least six of the subsequent by-elections, which must be held within three months of successful recalls, to retain its majority.
Currently, Taiwan’s 113-seat national legislative body includes 52 lawmakers from the KMT — 39 directly elected and 13 through proportional representation. The DPP holds 51 seats and the TPP has eight. There are also two independents who are ideologically aligned with the KMT.
Another way to gauge the recalls is whether bigwigs, such as KMT legislative caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) — dubbed the “King of Hualien” by local media due to his longstanding political influence in the eastern county — would be removed from office.
Removing Fu would deal a greater blow to the KMT and its influence in the legislature than most others, given his central role in the party caucus, said Liu Jia-wei (劉嘉薇), a political science professor at National Taipei University.
This reflected the recall groups’ intensified push against Fu, whom the recall groups view as the architect of opposition-backed legislation to expand the Legislative Yuan’s investigative powers, limit the Constitutional Court and reduce the government budget by an estimated 6.6 percent.
Meanwhile, Su said that how well Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) and Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) defend their cities’ KMT lawmakers in the run-up to the votes could shape their bids for party leadership and even influence their chances in the 2028 presidential race.
Of the lawmakers facing recall votes, five are from Taipei — notably KMT caucus secretary-general Wang Hung-wei (王鴻薇), seven-term legislator Lai Shyh-bao (賴士葆) and the outspoken Hsu Chiao-hsin (徐巧芯). Three others are from Taichung.
Local media have speculated Chiang and Lu to be possible contenders in the KMT’s chairmanship election scheduled for September, but as of now, neither — alongside incumbent KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) — has officially committed to the race.
While the DPP and the recall groups have built strong momentum in recent months, they could still fall short if the KMT manages to mobilize its base, along with non-partisan and low-propensity voters, to vote in its favor, Liu said, citing poll data showing general public skepticism toward the recalls.
Taiwan’s recall mechanism allows voters to remove lawmakers through public votes, but it does not follow the first-past-the-post system used in general elections.
For a recall vote to pass, the number of votes in favor of ousting a lawmaker must exceed the number of votes against. The number of votes in favor must also represent at least a quarter of all eligible voters in a given constituency.
According to Liu, the TPP would have little choice but to encourage its supporters to turn out and vote against the recalls if it hopes to preserve the opposition’s majority in the legislature.
Public polls conducted by the Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation from March to last month indicated that opposition to the “mass recalls” of KMT lawmakers has hovered between 54 and 59 percent, while support for the initiatives remained below 40 percent.
Nevertheless, Su pointed to the KMT’s dismal failure in advancing even a single recall proposal against a DPP lawmaker, saying that the “striking” 26-nil result raised questions about whether the party’s traditionally stronger local-level mobilization capacity had become frail.
Hsia, the KMT vice chairman, acknowledged the party’s poor performance in recall bids targeting DPP lawmakers.
“We didn’t do well in the beginning... We regret it, and now we are paying some of the price,” he said during the Wednesday press event.
Meanwhile, Ko blamed prosecutors for launching a series of investigations into KMT members involved in recall proposals against DPP lawmakers, arguing that the aggressive actions had created “a chilling effect.”
Chu led protests with the party’s members and supporters in Taipei after prosecutors raided the party’s local chapters in Taipei, New Taipei City, Taichung and several counties over allegations of forged recall petition signatures.
Approximately 100 KMT officials and affiliated people have been charged with document forgery, violations of personal data protection laws and other offenses.
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