Expectations were turned upside down as the Epic Recall failed.
“Epic Recall, Epic Win!” (大罷免，大成功) was almost an inescapable battle cry for the last few months in Taiwan. Everywhere you went there were bright-eyed bushy-tailed young volunteers asking you if you’d like to recall your local KMT legislator to “protect Taiwan and Counter China” because “they’re all in cahoots with the CCP” and “we have to protect our democracy before its too late.”
Well today was Recall Election Day and to my HUGE surprise, not a single one of the 24 KMT legislators up for recall were successfully sniped. Not even Yeh Yuan Chih, Freshman KMT legislator from the super-green Banchiao district. His nickname became “soft persimmon” because it was known he was the low-hanging fruit when it comes to recalls. I think Yeh is even surprised Yeh made it, albeit with a slim margin.
There’s going to be another round of 7 KMT legislators up for recall on 8/23, but not only have the momentum gone out of the whole venture, it’s also exceedingly unlikely that they’ll convert at least six KMT legislators into DPP legislators in order for the DPP to flip the legislature.
The Surprise Sweep
Pro-Recall supporter surprised as the results came in
I’ve actually tried to spend less of my one wild and precious life paying attention to the low-stakes yet bizarrely byzantine world of Taiwanese politics. So I’ll be lying if I said I’ve been tracking the polls or anything. But JUST ON VIBES I thought thought the recalls would snipe at least three or four KMT legislators. The bars are exceedingly low due to stupid procedural reasons and the recall groups have been exceedingly motivated and organized, as seen by the fact that they successfully collected enough petitions to recall a total of 31 KMT legislators while no DPP legislators’ recall efforts came up with enough valid signatures at the petition stage.
I really didn’t like these recalls. I called them the Sore Loser recalls because they’re all about the DPP trying to flip the legislature back to their control. In my mind, recalls are supposed to be reserved for serious malfeasance or incompetence. Not because you didn’t like the result of the election, which by the way was less than a year ago. I expected that most people didn’t like them either for that reason. Can’t Taiwan have just one year free of elections? We have local elections again next year. People are tired.
The Revenge of the Impurities
“Through the process of elections and recall elections, ballot by ballot, we will remove the impurities like forging iron into steel, and this is how we will defend our country…” was what President Lai Ching-te said ahead of the recalls, displaying a dismaying misunderstanding of basic metallurgy. You have to ADD stuff to iron to make steel, not just remove impurities. It is an alloy.
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