Thu, Feb 20, 2025 page12

• Donovan’s Deep Dives: A stunning development in Taiwan’s democracy

  With the recall threshold as low as it is, it’s hardly surprising that as of press time 51 legislators have been targeted, which could result in the blue camp losing its majority

  • By Courtney Donovan Smith 石東文 / Staff Columnist
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  This was not supposed to be an election year.

  The local media is billing it as the “2025 great recall era” (2025大罷免時代) or the “2025 great recall wave” (2025大罷免潮), with many now just shortening it to “great recall.”

  As of this writing the number of campaigns that have submitted the requisite one percent of eligible voters signatures in legislative districts is 51 — 35 targeting Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus lawmakers and 16 targeting Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers.

  

  Robert Tsao is leading efforts to recall Chinese Nationalist Party legislators.

  Photo: Peter Lo, Taipei Times

  The pan-green side has more as they started earlier. Many recall campaigns are billing themselves as “Winter Bluebirds” after the “Bluebird Action” (青鳥行動) of May last year against an unconstitutional law passed by the KMT and their effectively now pan-blue bloc partners, the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP).

  The KMT Youth League (中國國民黨青年團) has been active, in spite of the party not officially backing any specific campaigns. Similarly, in spite of DPP Chairman William Lai (賴清德) saying his party would not back any campaigns but would “respect” civil society groups that launched them, DPP caucus convener Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) and other lawmakers held a press conference on Monday backing the recall campaigns.

  As of press time, Lai has not publicly commented or rebuked Ker for defying him. It is possible they are playing “good cop/bad cop,” with Lai avoiding looking like the DPP supports overturning last year’s voter decisions while Ker is pumping up the base.

  UNIQUELY TAIWAN

  This is a stunning development in Taiwan’s democracy, the context for which can be found in my previous two columns.

  The last election was only held just over a year ago, but both sides are now trying to overturn the results in legislative districts and Indigenous constituencies.

  I have not been able to find any similar development at the national level in any other democracy, though there was something similar at the local councilor level in Peru.

  Recalls in Taiwan used to be difficult, so the standards were lowered, but by too much. Indeed, it was only a matter of time before this was used on a mass scale.

  Recall campaigns have three stages. In stage two, signatures and identification information from 10 percent of the constituency’s eligible voters must be collected within 60 days. If ratified, in stage three a vote is held and if those agreeing with the recall exceed 25 percent and outnumber those disagreeing with the recall, the lawmaker will lose their seat and a new election held.

  The 34 seats in the 113 legislature elected by party list, or legislators-at-large, can not be recalled. That includes the entire eight-member TPP caucus.

  There are 41 pan-blue seats that could be recalled, but only six have passed stage one. The DPP has 38 total, and while only 16 have submitted for stage one, expect that number to rise as pan-blues ramp up their efforts.

  MOTIVATION

  While the pan-blues banked on their supporters outnumbering pan-greens in the last election, I think strategically the pan-greens currently have the advantage. They are more motivated and have the psychological advantage of feeling they belong to a movement, which is not the case for KMT supporters.

  So far there does not appear to be a lot of activity coming from the TPP’s “Little Sprout” (小草) movement, which lacks the same motivation because their party is not threatened.

  In my previous column I noted that TPP party caucus convener and party Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) is unlikely to budge on the contentious issues motivating the Bluebirds so the one to watch was KMT caucus convener Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁). We now have our answer: He is on the side of the hardliners.

  In the cross-party caucus budget negotiations held on Tuesday he did not even bother to show up. As of this writing the original budget with all the cuts and frozen sections were expected to be resubmitted for President Lai to sign yesterday.

  This suggests he might also take a hard line on the other issues, including continuing to block the president’s nominations to the Constitutional Court to block a quorum forming to provoke a constitutional crisis. With the Constitutional Court unable to function, the pan-blues could pass all sorts of laws intended to accrue power to the legislature and paralyze the executive branch.

  The more they move along this path, the more alarmed and outraged the pan-greens will become, viewing the pan-blues as subverting democracy and selling out to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). That is very, very motivating.

  The last time there was a similar set of fears was over the intentions of current Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜). He lost the presidential election as the KMT’s candidate in a landslide and a recall campaign against him as Kaohsiung mayor was successful.

  The most consistent unifying feature of pan-blue voters is their dislike and distrust of the DPP.

  POLLING

  According to a Mirror Media poll released on Feb. 12, 46.2 percent are satisfied with the recall campaigns versus 44.5 percent who are not.

  The most important number is the 78.3 percent who intend to vote in a recall, so meeting the 25 percent threshold should be easy.

  While more are satisfied with the DPP’s lawmakers at 45.1 percent compared to 42.7 who are not, crucially around 20 percent are strongly dissatisfied. That 20 percent will almost certainly turn out to vote, so they only need to convince over 5 percent to hit the 25 percent threshold.

  The numbers look much worse for the KMT caucus, with only 31.6 percent satisfied and 55 percent dissatisfied. Just shy of 30 percent are strongly dissatisfied, indicating more motivation on the pan-green side.

  NET SIX

  A lot could change between now and any actual recall votes, which would likely happen in the July to September period. There is a lot of work ahead to pass stage two.

  Even here the DPP-led pan-greens have some good news in the form of United Microelectronics Corp founder Robert Tsao (曹興誠), the spokesman for the Safeguard Taiwan, Anti-Communist Volunteers Alliance, helping to fund their campaigns. Countering that, the pan-blue led KMT side has the support of local patronage factions in parts of the country, a network of CCP-funded temples and organized crime, but the party is struggling financially.

  On balance, the KMT’s networks give them an edge in rural and traditional KMT regions, while DPP, Bluebirds and Tsao’s campaign have the edge in urban areas.

  To win back a legislative majority the DPP would then need to win a net six seat gain in the subsequent by-elections. That might be harder than winning the recall votes due to lower thresholds in recalls.

  If the pan-blues do not change course, there is a strong chance they will lose their majority.

  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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