While the government and companies returned to work on Monday last week, the nationwide “mass recall” campaign entered the next phase, as recall petitions and signatures were submitted to the Central Election Commission (CEC). As of Friday, the CEC had received petitions to recall 32 legislators.
Before and during the Lunar New Year holiday, local media reported that dozens of civic groups across the country were setting up stalls at markets, parks, plazas and coffee shops to collect signatures to recall Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers.
They listed reasons for their action including discontent with the KMT’s and the Taiwan People’s Party’s lawmakers’ combined efforts to expand legislative power and paralyze the Constitutional Court, their arbitrary cutting and freezing of the government budget for illogical and seemingly retaliative reasons, as well as amending the law to make recalling elected officials more difficult.
Many also expressed concerns that some KMT lawmakers might be colluding with China to weaken national defense, cripple government operations and undermine Taiwan’s democracy.
The KMT said it would recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators as a counter-action. It said that the civic groups are a “troll army” for the DPP and that they are spreading rumors for the ruling party. Many KMT officials and KMT local government heads last week had repeatedly called for “the head of the house [the ruling DPP] not to cause trouble” by recalling lawmakers.
The civic group that wants to recall DPP Legislator Wu Pei-yi (吳沛憶) submitted its petition and signatures to the CEC on Wednesday last week, but the committee on Friday told the group that petition coleader and incumbent KMT Taipei Office deputy director Chang Yan-ting’s (張延廷) household registration in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), the electoral district Wu represents, was less than four months old — failing to meet the legal requirement.
It was also revealed that the leader of the group, Liu Szu-yin (劉思吟), is a KMT central committee member, and other members of the group submitting the petition were incumbent or former KMT youth workers.
The revelation of the group representatives’ identities highlighted the KMT’s hypocrisy. It was accusing people who protested its attempt to expand legislative power last year and civic groups petitioning to recall its lawmakers this year as “DPP-affiliated,” but those claims were not proven, while Chang, Liu and other members’ affiliation with the KMT has been proven.
It is also ironic that KMT legislators in December last year passed an amendment to the Public officials Election And Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法) to tighten recall thresholds, but now KMT-affiliated civic groups recalling DPP lawmakers are rushing to file their petitions before the amendment is enacted — implying that they know the recall would be too difficult under the stricter thresholds.
Moreover, some Hualien residents who have signed a petition to recall KMT caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (?), who is a former Hualien County commissioner and whose wife is the incumbent commissioner, said they have been intimidated by county government personnel visiting their homes and asking if they signed the petition.
The county government said its household registration officers might have given negative impressions, and that it would reflect and improve.
The KMT’s hypocritic and desperate actions toward the “mass recall” campaign are signs of its growing problems. However, if the KMT continues to ignore people’s voices, insists on labeling anyone who opposes it as “DPP-affiliated” and retaliates against them, it might soon find that it has created more enemies among the public and its lawmakers would find it more difficult to retain their seats.
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