DPP, KMT continue verbal sparring over mass recall election threats

Taipei, Jan. 8 (CNA) Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and main opposition Kuomintang (KMT) have continued to exchange words over the possibility of mass recall election campaigns directed at each other.

The controversy began on Saturday when DPP legislative caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) called for election recall campaigns against 41 opposition lawmakers, a proposal that the DPP itself and other senior DPP politicians were quick to distance themselves from.

In response, KMT politicians including KMT legislative caucus Deputy Secretary-General Wang Hung-wei (王鴻薇) suggested Sunday that the party would launch its own campaigns to "counter" the DPP.

On Tuesday, KMT lawmaker Lai Shyh-bao (賴士葆) told reporters that his party would initiate a campaign to recall 38 DPP lawmakers, but this claim was later dismissed by senior KMT figures.

"We haven't raised [the issue of] election recall campaigns aimed at any DPP lawmakers," KMT caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅崐萁) said on Wednesday.

KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said on the same day that his party's "fundamental attitude" to any potential recall campaigns was to "prepare for war but not ask for war."

"If they don't attack us, we won't attack them," Chu said.

Also on Wednesday, DPP lawmaker Wang Shih-chien (王世堅) said that he "personally opposes this kind of hostile election recall campaigning."

"No serious lawmaker" would care about "that kind of thing," he said.

In Taiwan's Legislative Yuan, lawmakers elected by voters from a specific district -- as opposed to legislators-at-large, who are elected on a national ticket -- may be subject to recall votes under the Public Officials Election And Recall Act.

Recall elections that result in the dismissal of lawmakers are relatively uncommon. In 2021, Chen Po-wei (陳柏惟), then of the Taiwan Statebuilding Party, became the first and thus far only member of the Legislative Yuan to be removed from office through a recall election.