Will 2025 be the Year of Recalls in Taiwan?
The DPP seems set to unleash recalls on KMT legislators in a bid to regain the legislature. Or has Caucus Whip Ker gone rogue?
In an extraordinary solo news conference, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Caucus Whip Ker Chien-Ming (柯建銘) announced a campaign to recall not one, not five, but all 41 elected KMT legislators currently in the Taiwanese legislature. But that’s not all, he also wants Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) the legislative speaker and his deputy to be recalled. The reason?
“We want the voters to know they made a mistake. These people are here to sell Taiwan out,” said Ker, “isn’t it the right thing to do to recall them?”
The idea of a “wave of recalls” to help the DPP overcome their disadvantage in the legislature has long been floated. But the numbers are daunting. The DPP holds just 51 seats after 2024’s legislative elections. This means they are outnumbered by 52 Kuomintang (KMT) legislators, plus the two independents and eight Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) legislators that usually caucus with them.
In the past, the DPP were also careful to paint the planned recalls as grassroots efforts driven by the will of the people and led by civil groups. However, Ker had no such compunctions. Saying that the legislature is “already dead” and “infiltrated by the long arms of Xi Jinping,” Ker made the case that Taiwan might “meet with destruction” if his efforts to recall all KMT legislators does not bear fruit.
Is his party with him?
While there is no doubt that the DPP has long intended to use recalls to snipe possibly vulnerable KMT legislators and regain some numerical advantage, Ker seems to be the only one going all-in on trying to recall all 41 KMT legislators. The DPP’s last recall effort was for KMT’s mayor of Keelung, Hsieh Guo-Liang. That was a failure. Since then, the KMT/TPP caucus also pushed through laws to require ID to be presented for a recall petition, raising the bar of difficulty for triggering a recall vote.
Is it possible that Caucus Whip Ker has lost the plot? Not only is it highly-unusual to do a press conference at the legislature alone without backup from fellow legislators, Ker had a bizarre banner behind him saying:
“Is it ‘Garbage Time’ for Ker? No…it’s Ker’s hour of Peak Combativeness. Ker’s most mature, intelligent and logical hour.”
Ker’s distractors have described his current tenure as legislative whip “garbage time” because after 31 years in the legislature, this might be Ker’s last rodeo, and he is spending it being repeatedly stymied. The KMT/TPP alliance has shut him out. Despite his reputation for being a savvy operator, none of his old tricks seem to work anymore.
Now the question is, is the “wave recall” effort a quixotic charge? Or does the “old fox” of the legislature have some more tricks up his sleeve?
Recalls and counter-recalls
It could be that despite his stated goals, the recalls are not meant to actually swing the legislature to the DPP but to whip up negative sentiments against the KMT, and build on the momentum of the “Bluebird” movement: protestors who have gathered in front the legislature and all over Taiwan to protest the KMT/TPP alliance’s legislative agenda.
The DPP party leadership’s response to Ker’s call was muted. Saying that all recalls are grassroot efforts, the party “respects the views of the caucus on recalls” without further comment.
On the KMT side, legislator Wang Hung-Wei of Taipei City Constituency III said the KMT will be meeting the challenges head-on.
“The KMT are not soft targets. We won’t be backing down. And we’re not ruling out launching counter-recalls against DPP legislators,” said Wang.
Commentator Huang Wei-han (黃暐瀚), who is influential and possibly the closest thing to a non-partisan fair dealer in Taiwanese politics, pointed out that Ker’s scorched earth tactics seems to be at odds with President Lai Ching-te’s conciliatory approach towards Legislative Speaker Han.
Huang pointed out that Ker’s call to recall the legislative speaker in addition to the KMT legislators simply cannot be done as legislators can only be re-elected and not recalled. Besides, President Lai just invited Legislative Speaker Han to lead the Taiwanese delegation to attend the Trump inauguration.
“Did Lai and Ker not communicate between themselves? Why are they taking totally different approaches?”
The Continuation of Chaos
I’m on the record as being against the use of recalls to overturn an electoral result you don’t like. The people have had their say at the ballot box very recently and they will again in a few years. What can be the reason for recalls — especially the kind of blanket recalls advocated by Ker — except for partisanship?
The most likely candidates to be successfully recalled are not those who have been grossly incompetent or committed unforgivable crimes but simply those who are in close electoral districts and thus “low-hanging fruit” easier to recall. The “wave of recalls” if they do manifest will be in effect do-over elections. It will plunge Taiwan into another hellish cycle of campaigning, and the results will be a few legislators taken out by random rather than any meaningful removal of bad actors.
Zooming out, I can’t help but notice a rising trend of dubious actions being taken for the sake of “saving democracy.” In South Korea, President Yoon declared martial law briefly because of the opposition's “legislative dictatorship.” In Romania, presidential election results were thrown out because of suspected Russian interference that turned out to be a specious charge. Destroying democracy in order to save it is a dangerous trend and I hope that Taiwan resists it. In the face of challenge by an authoritarian regime, what’s needed is unity, not a spiral of negative partisanship.
I like your thoughts about the dangers of emerging political authoritarianism.