Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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Photo Credit: Lai Ching-te/Facebook
THE DPP’S INTERNAL TENSIONS are suddenly visible in contention following the defeat of Taiwan’s “Great Recall Movement.”
For one, there was the question as to who should take responsibility for the failure. It is traditional for political party leaders to resign after election defeats in Taiwan. Some members of the DPP called for the resignation of President Lai Ching-te as party chair and Ker Chien-ming as legislative caucus leader.
This demand for responsibility is ironic. The recalls were not DPP-organized, nor were they an election. Yet they were clearly backed by the DPP, hence calls from within the party for responsibility.
Eventually, DPP secretary-general Lin Yu-chang resigned to take responsibility. A meeting of DPP leaders convened by Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung resulted in consensus emerging around Lai.
At the same time, it would not be surprising if Ker Chien-ming continues to see heat for pushing the DPP toward recalls. Ker was among the earliest to call for recalls against the KMT. At the time, because of the perceived improbability of the strategy early in recall campaigning, Ker was seen as pushing the DPP toward recalls to maintain power against Lai. Ker has historically served as the DPP’s legislative caucus leader, but he is often seen as aging and politically conservative in a way out of step with the times. But after the unexpected political momentum behind the calls, Ker saw flak for attempting to claim credit for the recall wave, as a way to bolster his standing in the party.
The DPP’s further struggles when it comes to the recall are visible in calls from legislator Wang Shih-chien for Lai to request recall organizers to withdraw the recall proposal slated to be voted on in August. Given the abysmal failure of the July recalls, in which not a single recall was successful, the August recalls are expected to be similarly unsuccessful.
In response, Lai expressed his continued support for the proposals, as did the DPP as a whole. Yet Wang’s comments are likely to lead to further anger against the DPP from recall organizers.
In spite of the KMT’s attempts to depict them otherwise, recall campaigns were initiated by civic groups across Taiwan. That they were, across the board, grassroots efforts was thought to increase the odds of recall campaigns succeeding, in that such efforts could appeal to swing voters and moderates who might have otherwise reacted with distaste toward DPP-organized efforts.
And yet the DPP also had the party machine and mobilization capacity to make recalls more effective, as well as experience in campaigning that could have helped recall campaigners. Consequently, the DPP sought to back recalls while doing so from a distance, which proved an awkward posture.
But since the failure of the recalls, there has been a round of finger-pointing against the DPP for not being more involved in assisting with campaigns from key recall campaigners as UMC founder Robert Tsao. This is ironic; during the recall campaigns themselves, there was also pushback against what was perceived as efforts by the DPP to co-opt civic efforts.
In this sense, the DPP further finds itself between a rock and a hard place when it comes to how to relate to the failed recalls. Certainly, it does not want to alienate recall campaigners, and it needs to find some way to pacify them.
However, just as the KMT perceived the recalls as DPP-orchestrated, there may be members of the DPP who themselves do not seem to realize the sheer volume of self-initiated grassroots activity behind the recalls, that they think that the DPP in a position to call recall organizers to halt recalls that they already collected signatures for and spent many months campaigning for. For one, it is not the DPP’s call to decide to cancel recalls, as Wang seems to suggest, and recall organizers would probably prompt significant backlash from their supporters if they decided to suddenly cancel the August recalls.
It can generally be expected that there will continue to be tensions in the pan-Green camp after the defeat of the “Great Recall Movement,” then. It is to be seen whether such tensions, which often aggravate existing conflicts, can be put aside with other elections on the horizon.