by Brian Hioe

語言:
English
Photo Credit: George Hsieh/Facebook

A RECALL VOTE against Keelung mayor George Hsieh held today resulted in Hsieh staying in office. Around 70,000 were in favor of recalling Hsieh, while 85,000 supported his staying in office, with voter turnout at 49.35%. The Hsieh campaign declared victory around 6 PM.

The Hsieh recall vote was the most high-profile of the recall campaigns against KMT politicians after the Bluebird Movement earlier this year. Nevertheless, the recall vote would not have fundamentally changed the political outlook in the Taiwanese legislature, seeing as Hsieh is not a legislator but a local mayor. Likewise, as the first major recall vote in the wake of the Bluebird Movement, the most momentum would have gone into the Hsieh recall vote. It is to be seen if other recall campaigns against KMT politicians see decreased momentum in the wake of the recall vote’s failure.

The Keelung DPP city council caucus began calling for Hsieh’s recall in light of several scandals earlier this year, framed as abuse of power, well before the Bluebird Movement. This mostly pertained to Keelung’s E-Plaza shopping center, the largest mall in Keelung. While under Hsieh’s direction the mall is to become EAST COAST by BREEZE, as acquired by the Breeze Center chain of shopping malls, NET has pushed back against this.

Final count for the recall vote at the counting site of the recall campaign

NET became a part-owner of the E-Plaza shopping center in 2016, investing in the renovation and construction of its mall. Yet the Hsieh administration has taken the view that there was a breach of contract due to a fraud scandal that NET’s parent company became involved in.

NET has framed this as violating previous agreements, in changing an Operate and Transfer agreement to a Renovate, Operate and Transfer agreement without any legal basis. To this extent, NET took out newspaper ads accusing the Keelung city government of wrongdoing.

Especially controversial has been a raid conducted at night by police on NET. This was criticized as a case of the Hsieh administration attempting to strong-arm the company. Likewise, Hsieh has been accused of failing to be transparent about his mayoral administration’s negotiations with Breeze, with relevant documents having gone missing, and online comments by netizens in support of NET deleted.

This is not the only time that Hsieh has faced allegations of wrongdoing. During the 2022 local elections, DPP candidate Tsai Shih-ying, accused Hsieh of money laundering. Specifically, Tsai accused Hsieh of establishing shell companies overseas for money laundering purposes, so as to hide his wealth. Tsai has also alleged Hsieh of assisting in money laundering, due to links with individuals who later faced such charges, such as former Reliance Securities Company chair Lin Kuan-pai.

But the broader issue at hand may be Hsieh’s belonging to a politically powerful and influential family in Keelung. Hsieh hails from a political family that has long dominated local politics in Keelung. George Hsieh’s father, Hsieh Hsiu-ping, served roles in the Keelung city councilor, National Assembly, and Taiwan Provincial Assembly. Hsiu Hsiu-ping had, in turn, succeeded his father Hsieh Qingyun, who served on the Keelung city council and in the National Assembly.

The Hsieh family is seen as constituting a local KMT faction in Keelung. To this extent, while Keelung’s Second Credit Cooperative had been originally founded in 1922, with the dominant shareholders being the Yen family of Keelung, it came under the control of the Hsieh family in the 1960s and 1970s during a time of restructuring.

In past months, the KMT has tried to increase the benchmarks for politicians to be recalled, so as to defend Hsieh. This was further angering of demonstrators involved in the Bluebird Movement earlier this year, seeing as the measures were seen as being steamrolled through the legislature without consent from the general public, much as the legislative powers that the KMT sought in the course of the movement skipped committee review. Nevertheless, the KMT termed raising such benchmarks as a measure to prevent “revenge recalls” in Taiwan.

George Hsieh. Photo credit: George Hsieh/Facebook

To this extent, Hsieh’s reputation was damaged in past weeks because of a typhoon that hit Taiwan. Hsieh served as the public face for northern Taiwan declaring a typhoon day, with the KMT likely hoping that this would benefit him electorally. Specifically, Keelung, Taoyuan, Taipei, and New Taipei often declare typhoon days together because of strong transportation links between the four municipalities, with many living in Keelung, Taoyuan, and New Taipei but commuting to Taipei for work. But when these municipalities declared several typhoon days despite little rain and failed declared a typhoon day when three was flooding, this was blamed on Hsieh, with the DPP asserting that Hsieh had forced the mayors of the greater Taipei metropolitan area into declaring unnecessary typhoon days and mismanaging the situation.

As the vote was relatively close, the DPP is likely to spin the defeated recall as suggesting that the KMT will face stumbles in the next election. Nevertheless, the KMT may capitalize on the failed recall vote to push for its own “revenge recalls” against DPP legislators, particularly those on the Keelung city council involved in the campaign against Hsieh, with allegations that this has already taken place.

In March, Hsieh was accused by the Keelung DPP city council caucus of illegally using his family business in order to bolster the recall campaign. At a press conference, the Keelung DPP city council caucus produced a document stating that employees of Keelung’s Second Credit Cooperative had been asked to find four people each to sign a recall petition. Otherwise, high-profile DPP politicians are likely to be targeted.

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