Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Wednesday it is “evident and clear” that China is attempting to interfere with the island’s democracy.
A recall vote will be held this weekend for 24 lawmakers from the opposition Kuomintang (KMT) party, prompted by accusations they were colluding with Beijing.
“The Chinese Communist Party’s attempt to interfere with Taiwan’s democratic operation is evident and clear,” the MAC said. “Recall in Taiwan is a civil right guaranteed by the constitution, and it is up to the people of Taiwan to decide who should or should not be removed from office.”
Taiwan’s government is currently headed by President William Lai Ching-te, successor to President Tsai Ing-wen. Both are members of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Tsai and Lai are loathed by the Chinese Communists, who accuse them of harboring dangerous “separatist” plans that could force China to invade Taiwan.
The opposition KMT is much more amenable to Beijing’s agenda, although its leaders insist it is not “pro-China” or influenced by the Chinese Communist Party.
The Taiwanese government frequently accuses China of meddling in its politics, often by promoting KMT candidates viewed as more reasonable by Beijing. International analysts generally agreed with Taiwanese experts that China pulled out all the stops to prevent Lai from becoming president after Tsai.
Lai won the election anyway, by a comfortable margin – but KMT and its ally, the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), won control of the legislature. Gridlock ensued, with KMT and TPP blocking legislation and appointments. Taiwan’s parliament has been rocked by a somewhat higher number of fistfights than usual.
A coalition of Taiwanese civic groups began protesting this year against KMT obstructionism. Their complaints soon escalated to accusing KMT of deliberately weakening Taiwan’s national security to pave the way for a Chinese takeover.
Depending on how the recall elections turn out, KMT may come to regret its February 2024 effort to expand the power of the legislature as its greatest mistake. A vigorous protest movement known as the “Bluebirds” rose up to oppose the legislative power grab. The movement was named after one of the streets adjacent to the Legislative Yuan, the headquarters of the Taiwanese legislature. Blue birds were suddenly everywhere in Taipei, depicted on thousands of leaflets and posters.
The Bluebird Movement was unexpectedly huge, stunning Kuomintang legislators who thought their victory in the 2024 election was a mandate for divided government and closer oversight of the executive branch. The movement even took out a billboard in Times Square to rally support in the United States.
KMT ignored the protests and pushed its oversight legislation through anyway. When much of the bill was struck down by Taiwan’s Constitutional Court, the KMT-TPP alliance attacked the Court and passed another bill to prevent further judicial rulings from interfering with legislation, effectively expanding the power of the legislature against the judiciary.
KMT also attempted to slash national defense spending, touting its ability to keep the peace with China by maintaining friendly relations with Chinese officials. The opposition party could not have done a better job of setting the stage for a popular movement to accuse it of colluding with Beijing to weaken and divide Taiwan.
A new civic coalition with roots in the Bluebird movement stunned the Taiwanese political world last month by announcing it would collect signatures for a petition to force the recall of KMT legislators – and succeeding. Recall petitions have been part of Taiwan’s political system since the first constitution of the Republic of China in 1947, but they are very difficult to pull off. Simultaneously petitioning for dozens of recalls was unthinkable, but they did it.
Thousands of volunteers fanned out across Taiwan, shrewdly posting themselves at places where average citizens congregate, like the places where people dump their garbage at night. The activists were high-spirited and enthusiastic, not angry scolds.
Sunday’s “Great Recall” elections will be the largest in Taiwan’s history, and at least seven more KMT legislators could be subject to recall after that. Nearly a third of Taiwan’s lawmakers will be recalled if the elections are all successful.
The DPP openly supported the recall effort, angering the KMT, which accused its rivals of manipulating the recall process to make a grab for authoritarian power. KMT leader Eric Chu denounced Lai as a “dictator” who was “more communist than the communists, and more fascist than the fascists.”
The DPP, in turn, noted that Chinese state media was strongly backing the KMT and echoing Kuomintang talking points. Critics of the KMT described the party as a cancer that needed to be removed with the surgery of a recall election.
The KMT attempted to counterattack with recall petitions of their own, but all of them failed to meet the high threshold needed to force an election, while nearly all of the recall petitions against KMT lawmakers succeeded.
Of course, the recall elections themselves could fail, at least in sufficient numbers for KMT-TPP to retain control of the legislature. Taiwan’s rules say that over a quarter of registered voters in each district must vote for recall, and the votes in favor must be greater than the votes against.
There are 113 seats in the Yuan. DPP currently holds 51 of them, while KMT and its allies have 62, so at least half of the 24 recalls on Sunday must succeed to disrupt the balance of power. Seven more recall elections are scheduled for August 23, so DPP could pick up some more opportunities then.
A successful recall vote triggers a special election within three months. The KMT can certainly run in the by-elections, using different candidates. Reuters noted on Tuesday that some of the legislators facing recall are in “very safe seats,” so unless the groundswell of public sentiment against the KMT is even larger than it appears, it is likely that KMT would win those special elections by running fresh candidates.
KMT’s ally, the TPP, is a small center-left party founded in 2019 by former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-jie, who is currently in detention pending a trial for bribery and embezzlement. Prior to his indictment, Ko did surprisingly well in the 2024 presidential race, running as the top-shelf outsider candidate after FoxConn founder Terry Gou dropped out.
Ko refused to form a fusion ticket with KMT, which angered the main opposition party, because together they might have stood a better chance against Lai. Once the presidential election was settled, TPP became an unambiguous ally of KMT, even though Ko still presented himself as a maverick independent who hated the two-party status quo.
TPP strongly opposes the recall effort, even though none of its eight lawmakers will be on the chopping block on Sunday. TPP’s new leader, Huang Kuo-chang, accused President Lai of arrogance and authoritarianism for backing the recall effort.
“The TPP will not tolerate the DPP trampling on this land or allow Lai Ching-te to act like an emperor. We stand here for Taiwan’s democracy and the next generation. If we let Lai and Ker Chien-ming succeed, Taiwan will become the very thing we abhor,” Huang said on Monday. Ker Chien-ming is the DPP minority leader in the Legislative Yuan.
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