Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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Photo Credit: 民進黨立法院黨團/Facebook
ANGER HAS BROKEN out over the KMT forcing draft amendments to the Public Officials Election and Recall Act through a preliminary review in under three minutes yesterday, in spite of significant contention over the issue.
The meeting to discuss the draft amendments was scheduled for 9 AM, but the meeting was declared over by 9:03 AM. KMT legislators sealed the entrance to the meeting using tape and blocked the door with chairs.
DPP legislators arrived by 6 AM, anticipating that the KMT might resort to such tactics. Several KMT legislators who arrived around 8 AM were allowed into the meeting room. Nevertheless, by the time the vote was to take place at 9 AM, DPP legislators were unsuccessful in forcing their way into the meeting room. Consequently, the draft amendments passed, with the DPP being denied from voting altogether.
The KMT currently calls for ID checks to be required for signatures on recall petitions. Likewise, the KMT aims to change laws so that for an elected official to be recalled, the number of votes needs to be higher than the number of votes that the official was originally elected by.
Photo credit: 民進黨立法院黨團/Facebook
If such a measure passes, it would be difficult for any politician to be recalled in Taiwan, seeing as voter turnout for recalls is rarely ever as large as for elections. The KMT’s efforts to raise the barriers for holding recall votes began earlier this year, as a means of protecting Keelung mayor George Hsieh from facing recall.
As members of organized crime groups have been found to be involved in recall and referendum petitions in the past, civil society groups have been critical of ID checks as potentially leading to personal identification information–such as national ID numbers–being obtained by fraud rings.
The KMT did not succeed in preventing the recall vote against Hsieh from taking place, though Hsieh hung onto power. Yet while the recall vote against Hsieh was ultimately unsuccessful, the KMT continued with efforts to make holding recalls more difficult.
Unsurprisingly, past Bluebird Movement mobilizations have not only directed anger at the KMT over its ongoing efforts to freeze the Constitutional Court, but also regarding efforts to raise barriers for benchmarks. After the initial wave of the Bluebird Movement activity against efforts by the KMT to expand legislative powers in a manner perceived as threatening civil liberties, organizers sought to redirect energy toward recalling hated KMT politicians. Bluebird Movement mobilizations, too, took place against the KMT’s actions in raising the benchmarks for recall today.
The KMT forcing through legal proposals that do not have social consensus is likely to provoke anger. In particular, the dynamics of the Bluebird Movement have in many ways echoed those of the Sunflower Movement ten years ago.
Part of what outraged about the KMT’s efforts to pass the Cross-Strait Services Trade Agreement (CSSTA) in the series of events that prompted the Sunflower Movement was that the CSSTA was declared as having passed committee review in thirty seconds. Committee chair Chang Ching-chung declared that the agreement was passed using a megaphone in a bathroom.
It proves strange the KMT has apparently not learned that such moves stoke public anger, with the KMT seen as trampling over democratic institutions. Even so, this may not be so different from how the KMT saw fit to propose renewing efforts to pass the CSSTA in the course of the 2024 election cycle.
It is to be seen if protests break out against the KMT’s actions in the coming days, then. Similarly, it is to be seen if the KMT continues with tactics that steamroll legislation, even when this involves preventing DPP legislators from voting with physical force. Though the KMT has defended itself by claiming the DPP has prevented the function of the legislature itself, the DPP has suggested the KMT will continue with such tactics.