Recalls must succeed
The amendments to the Public Officials Election and Recall Act (選舉罷免法) promulgated by President William Lai (賴清德) on Tuesday critically damage Taiwan’s democratic mechanisms.
By passing a requirement for petition organizers and signers to provide copies of their national ID cards — showing home addresses and other sensitive information — as well as increased penalties for legal infringements, the changes would raise the recall threshold requirements so much that it would be just about impossible for recall campaigns to succeed.
The amendments are not only a technical selection and modification of the letter of the law, but a blatant attempt to manipulate politics through potential intimidation and to weaken the public’s ability to check bad lawmakers.
The amendments only serve the political interests of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP).
If the recall process becomes cumbersome and involves increased personal risks, the opportunity for civic oversight would be drastically reduced, hollowing out a mechanism to hold legislators accountable. If the mass recall movement fails, no matter how awful a legislator’s actions, the public would be unable to effectively hold another recall, which would lead to the all-out regression of Taiwan’s democracy.
In light of the amendments, the public must absolutely succeed in the great recall movement. In doing so, the course the KMT and TPP have led Taiwan down could be altered, conveying a clear message to politicians that Taiwanese will not tolerate actions that betray their democracy and take the nation backward.
If the recall movement fails, the KMT and the TPP would become more emboldened. The next three years would be certain to include even more slashing away at democracy, accompanied by malicious legislation that infringes on hard-won civil and human rights.
If they survive the recalls, it would lead to greater manipulation and incompetence within Taiwan’s political system. The success or failure of democracy hinges on this battle.
Shih Li
Tainan
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