by Brian Hioe

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Photo Credit: Fu Kun-chi/Facebook

THE KMT PUSHED through amendments to the Recall Act aimed at making it more difficult for recalls to take place yesterday.

These amendments had previously undergone their third reading in the Legislative Yuan, but were in the one-month review period that normally occurs after a third reading of legislation. The KMT has been criticized for again circumventing legislative procedure in order to try and force bills into law–immediately before the legislature went on a one-week recess for the Lunar New Year.

Indeed, the bill was sent to the Executive Yuan at 4:47 PM. It has been common lately for the KMT to only publicize the text of bills immediately before votes are cast, so as to prevent the DPP from reacting beforehand. Similarly, the KMT has sometimes physically shut the DPP out of committee review meetings or readings of bills in the Legislative Yuan assembly chambers.

Political responses were immediate, with the Executive Yuan holding an emergency meeting. The Executive Yuan has stated that it will send the bill back to the legislature for reconsideration.

In particular, the new bill would mandate ID checks for recall petitions. The barriers for recalls taking place would also be raised, so that recall votes would require more votes against a candidate than they were voted in with during the original election.

The use of ID checks has raised concerns, given that signature collection could potentially be used for fraud. Given the history of vote buying in Taiwan, pan-Blue signature collection for political candidates has sometimes involved organized crime, raising concerns that personal ID information would be used as a means of identity theft. Otherwise, such measures prove similar to other ID checks instituted as a means of depriving citizens of their ability to vote, as seen in the US or elsewhere.

Similarly, if barriers for recalls are raised to require more votes than during the original election, this would make it difficult for any candidate to be recalled.

Recall campaigns are currently underway for all of the KMT’s legislators. Although some have questioned how realistic it will be to recall all of the KMT’s legislators, this is a result of public outrage over the KMT’s actions in the past year. Such actions range from attempting to expand legislative powers last year in a way as to allow for expansive investigatory powers, as a means of seizing powers that normally belong to the legislative and executive branches of government. Such efforts have continued, in that the KMT also presently aims to freeze the functioning of the Constitutional Court.

Photo credit: Fu Kun-chi/Facebook

The KMT’s recent attempts to block the national budget and then make a range of wide-ranging cuts targeting defense, cultural policy, diplomacy, and digital security have further prompted outrage. The effort to raise barriers for recalls to be held has also led to anger, in that the public has reacted against what they see as the KMT depriving them of their constitutional right to recall politicians.

The fact that the KMT sought to strong-arm the legislation into law indicates that the KMT, in fact, fears the ongoing round of recall campaigns. Namely, the KMT is likely seeking to accelerate the timeline for the changes taking effect.

As the current set of recall campaigns were all initiated before the laws took effect, this raises questions about whether the new barriers would apply to them.

To this extent, the KMT’s new measures are likely to face a substantive challenge with regard to constitutionality. Again, this takes place on the basis of that the right to recall is a constitutional right.

In effect, calling for the recall of all KMT legislators in Taiwan amounts to a public vote of no-confidence in the current legislature. Taiwan does not have provisions for a vote of no confidence by which the legislature could be dissolved and a new set of elections to be called for, as exists in some political systems.

It is unclear as to whether the KMT will respond by calling for the recall of all DPP legislators. To date, the KMT has focused fire on DPP legislators Huang Jie, Hsu Chih-chieh, Rosalia Wu, and Wu Pei-yi, as DPP legislators who have been vocally critical of the KMT. Huang Jie and Wu Pei-yi, who are also the first out LGBTQ politicians in the legislature, are both of the political generation that entered politics after the Sunflower Movement.

Though there have been concerns in past years about a wave of “revenge recalls” between the pan-Blue and pan-Green camps, it proves different for recall campaigns against all KMT politicians to take place at the same time. There was a push to recall KMT politicians after the Sunflower Movement in what was known as the Appendectomy Project, but such efforts largely took place before barriers to recalls taking place were put into effect after 2016. and did not target all KMT politicians.

Still, recalling KMT politicians en masse would still require further elections to take place to replace them, and does not necessarily mean that a recalled KMT politician would be replaced with a DPP politician. As such, much political uncertainty is ahead.

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