Chen Lifei, a special correspondent of this newspaper
Under the leadership of Lin Youchang, the former mayor of Keelung and the current secretary general of the party, the Democratic Progressive Party launched a "hatred mobilization war" to oust Keelung Mayor Xie Guoliang of the Kuomintang, and was rewarded with a "big slap" by the voting people. However, according to Taiwan media reports, the green camp has not learned its lesson, but is still brewing the next "general recall wave".
Several Blue Camp members were targeted
Keelung Mayor Xie Guoliang's recall case was voted on the 13th, with 86,014 votes disagreeing and 69,934 votes agreeing, and the recall bill was not passed. Taiwan's "Central Election Committee" issued an announcement that the result of Xie Guoliang's recall case was "vetoed." According to the provisions of the "Election and Recall Law" on the island, Xie Guoliang may not be dismissed until his term of office ends. Some analysts on the island said that the votes show that even if the DPP pushes Keelung to the extreme, the public is obviously unwilling to accept the hatred mobilization.
But the DPP did not give up. According to a report by Taiwan's "China Times" on the 14th, Wang Hongwei, chief deputy secretary of the Kuomintang "Legislative Yuan" caucus, said that the "recall of Liang" can be said to be the touchstone of next year's recall tide; in fact, some KMT "legislators" in Taipei, Taichung, and New Taipei have been targeted by "Blue Bird" (young supporters of the DPP). This move clearly points to the 2028 Taiwan regional leadership election.
Luo Tingwei bluntly said on the 14th that "the drunkard's intention is not to drink", and the DPP is mainly targeting Lu Xiuyan, but he believes that the citizens of Taichung will not agree with such a recall, and they will actively face and respond to the battle. Ye Yuanzhi, a Kuomintang "legislator" who was named and one of the number one figures in the recall of "legislators," said that from the results of this "Liang Recall Case," we know that the people will not support the inexplicable recall, which will only waste taxpayers' money and tear society apart. He sarcastically said that the recall should not be to let the person who lost the election be elected again, like the person who is now shouting to remove him, behind it is also the person who lost to him in the first place, "Do you want the DPP to be elected until it wins?" ”
According to reports, in addition to the recall of KMT personnel, the Green Camp is also operating to remove Gao Hongan, the mayor of Hsinchu who has no party membership. Taiwan's "United Daily News" said on the 14th that after Gao Hongan was sentenced for alleging fraud in receiving assistant fees during his term as a "legislator", he is currently suspended from his post and is also in a recall crisis. The online organization "Recall Gao Hongan: Windy City Gets Safe on the Road" claims to have collected 1,360 signatures, but it is still far from the threshold of 3,540 in the first phase.
KMT will push for "recall amendment"
The Kuomintang adopted a two-pronged strategy for this purpose. According to a report by United Daily News on the 15th, the party's "Legislative Yuan" caucus will promote the revision of the "Law on the Selection and Recall of Public Officials". Lin Siming, secretary general of the Kuomintang caucus, said that according to the current "election and recall law", it is very easy to carry out the recall because the threshold is not high, and there are many shortcomings in the joint review process. The Kuomintang proposed an amendment to the law, initially in an attempt to raise the recall threshold from the current 5% to 50% of those who have the right to vote, but later decided to maintain the threshold and instead require a copy of the ID card for the recall signatories. He revealed that the relevant draft has been read for the second time, and the plan will be completed a week later, and the "Legislative Premier" Korea Yu will be asked to convene consultations with all parties, and it is expected that the third reading will be adopted in this session. At the same time, the Kuomintang is also preparing to remove Tong Ziwei, the speaker of the Keelung City Council.
Kuomintang Chairman Zhu Lilun said on 15 August in response to the "general recall wave" that what Taiwan needs is not hatred and confrontation, and that (those who lose) want to be re-elected after the election, and that Taiwan's politics will never be peaceful if they are recalled. He said that the KMT's determination is to fight hard for the whole people, but it is not afraid of war or war, and if the DPP continues to use bad methods, they will call on all the people to stand up and defend the forces of goodness and stability in Taiwan. Huang Guochang, the chief convener of the People's Party caucus, also called on the Lai Qingde authorities to "turn back to the shore" and not continue to play spoofs, and not to be unable to produce concrete results and decent report cards for more than 100 days since he took office in May, but to constantly create conflicts in an attempt to shift the focus.
Kuomintang "legislator" Li Yanxiu said that the DPP will promote the "recall wave", and what they are most concerned about is that they still want "more than half of the Legislative Yuan", and now that the "boycott" has failed, they may take a key attack, that is, through the "general recall" threat, destroy the mutual trust and unity within the blue camp, and warm up for the 2026 "nine-in-one" election in advance. Niu Zexun, a professor at the Department of Advertising at Taiwan's Chinese Culture University, said that the "all-Taiwan recall" is related to the DPP's seat in the "Legislative Yuan," and "that is the main course, and this recall is just a small piece of cake." Qu Zhaoxiang, a retired professor at the Institute of Political Science at Taiwan Normal University, believes that such a high frequency of recall is not a good thing, and every time it is social mobilization, in fact, ordinary people are not so interested.
Weaken potential competitors
"China Times" recalled on the 15th that Taiwan's "Legislative Yuan" in 2016 passed the third reading of the "Election and Recall Law" to lower the recall threshold, and in 2017, Huang Guochang was the first person to apply the new threshold, but the final recall was not passed. Korea Kuo-yu was the first "mayor directly under the central government" to be removed from office on the island, and the green camp celebrated with joy that night, the Kuomintang Kaohsiung City Council Speaker Xu Kunyuan fell to his death, and the anger of the blue army was like a blazing fire.
Taiwan's United News Network quoted the analysis of relevant people on the 15th, saying that the lessons accumulated from the former Kaohsiung Mayor Korea Kuo-yu to Xie Guoliang's recall case, "the future recall war may lead to a hot war showdown." As for whether there will be a "wave of legislative recalls" in February next year, the KMT believes that once the social atmosphere is operable, or if there is a breach within the KMT, a "throat-cutting war" for a majority of seats in the "Legislative Yuan" will inevitably be staged.
Gui Hongcheng, a scholar on the island, wrote an article on 15 August saying that the current threshold for passing the recall of Taiwan's "Law on the Election and Recall of Public Officials" is obviously unreasonable; now that the DPP has the ruling power and the resources of the authorities, in order to break through the dilemma of "a double minority in power" in the election of Taiwan's leaders and seats in the "Legislative Yuan," using recall to carry out political struggle is its "unstoppable" means. Moreover, the recall of public officials in specific constituencies has the effect of pre-empting potential contenders for the next election.
Liu Xingren, a scholar at Taiwan's Chinese Culture University, wrote that in the long run, if such a retaliatory recall becomes the norm in Taiwan's politics, not only will Taiwan never have peace, and vicious partisan fighting will become commonplace, but it will also cause social antagonism, which will then affect Taiwan's economic development and social harmony. "When retaliatory recall becomes a tool for Taiwan's politics to kill each other, Taiwan society will continue to wear down internally." ▲