Analysis: Political Turmoil Over Taiwan's Recall Vote Law

Political analyst Courtney Donovan Smith discusses efforts to amend Taiwan's law on recall votes – and the political turmoil that's resulted.

Transcript

00:00Has recalling been a highly effective tool in Taiwanese politics in recent years?

00:05One pattern that I've noticed here is that the candidates who are the politicians who have been successfully recalled

00:13are those that have been very polarizing people.

00:16Candidates who maybe they have opinions which are outside of the mainstream

00:20but that tend to carry themselves in a more cooperative and friendly and sort of peaceful manner,

00:27they're more ingratiating on their social media accounts.

00:31They post up a lot of content where they are posing with constituents and showing their concern.

00:40Those failed.

00:41How do you account for the different parties' positions on this recall issue

00:44given that both have had, the main parties have had their candidates recalled in recent years

00:49and that next time around it could be a useful tool to knock out an opponent?

00:53Well, this appears to be possibly related to calls by the Bluebird movement

00:59to try and recall a series of KMT lawmakers so they lose their legislative plurality.

01:07That's what the theory is by the political opponents of the KMT.

01:12The KMT would say that the bar has been set too low and that they're rectifying this problem.

01:19Do you see, given the bitterness of the debate, this even getting past the committee at all?

01:24A lot of this is going to depend on the Taiwan People's Party.

01:28According to them, they do not support the changes to the threshold that the KMT is proposing.

01:36They disagree with that part.

01:38But the Taiwan People's Party does want to put in more requirements to identify the people who are signing on.

01:47In other words, more documentation to prove their identity.

01:50Now, the big question will be, if the KMT can get this out of committee and to a vote,

01:56then if the TPP abstains, they could pull this off.

02:02If the TPP actively votes against it, then it will fail.