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In this episode we kick off the first part in a series of podcasts on Taiwan’s Great Recall in which we aim to bring you perspectives from all sides of the debate at this important crossroads in Taiwan’s democratic journey.
As we explained in our previous episode on President Lai’s first year in office, while his party, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) won the presidential vote in January of 2024, they failed to maintain a majority in the Legislative Yuan or parliament. As a result, the parliament has been controlled by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and their smaller ally the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) who according to opponents have sought to block the DPP’s agenda, freeze or cut budgets, undermine Taiwan's constitutional order and weaken efforts to bolster defense capabilities against growing Chinese military threats.
According to a report by Citizen Congress Watch (CCW), a Taiwanese NGO engaged in parliamentary monitoring, in the first session of the current parliament only a fraction of legislative proposals successfully passed the readings, reflecting low legislative efficiency as a result of the divisive partisan infighting that has taken precedence over advancing policies for public benefit.
The KMT insist that they are seeking to strengthen and protect Taiwan’s democracy and say these recalls are politically motivated. They accuse the ruling DPP of using recalls to eliminate the opposition. However, not all of the electorate would appear to agree and a mass recall effort led by civic groups has been underway for months.
On June 20th, Taiwan’s election commission announced a recall vote for 24 KMT lawmakers - that’s around one quarter of the parliament's members - all from the main opposition party.
The date for the recall vote has been set for July 26th.
In this first episode in our series on Taiwan’s Great Recall, we talk to Professor Chen Fang-Yu (陳方隅) from the Department of Political Science at Soochow University (東吳大學) in Taipei to understand;
- The history of recall elections in Taiwan and the recall process,
- What factors have led to this latest and unprecedented mass recall effort,
- How Beijing's military pressure on Taiwan and relationship with individual lawmakers is influencing attitudes on the recall,
- Plus much more!
Photocredit: Instagram: double_lucky_
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