ANALYSIS/Taiwan heads into high-stakes recall showdown that could reshape Legislature

By Teng Pei-ju, CNA staff reporter

Taiwan is bracing for a political shake-up as a majority of directly elected lawmakers from the main opposition Kuomintang (KMT) face the prospect of early removal from office in unprecedented waves of recall votes slated for July 26 and Aug. 23.

The outcome of the public votes targeting 26 KMT lawmakers in the next two months -- and potentially five more at later dates -- could upend the power structure in the Legislature, where the KMT and the smaller Taiwan People's Party (TPP) currently hold a combined majority.

After denying direct involvement in the recall campaigns for months, the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) recently pledged to mobilize its rank-and-file "on the scale of a major national election" to unseat the KMT lawmakers.

The DPP's decision to swing its full support behind the recalls has effectively turned what was a nominally grassroots, civic group-led initiative into a showdown between Taiwan's two largest political parties.

Push to reshape Legislature

While campaigners have framed the recalls as an effort to "oppose Communist China" and "defend Taiwan," some within the DPP have been more candid about the party's ultimate objective: to regain control of the Legislature, which it ceded last January.

"If Taiwan is to take further action to strengthen its security, a crucial step will be to change the current structure and dynamics of the Legislative Yuan," DPP spokesperson Justin Wu (吳崢) told CNA during a phone interview.

Wu, who described the upcoming recalls as a "vote of rejection," said KMT and TPP lawmakers had hampered government efforts to enhance Taiwan's security by cutting the defense budget.

According to government data, the Legislature cut NT$8.4 billion (US$287.18 million) -- or roughly 1.3 percent -- from the proposed NT$647 billion defense spending for the fiscal year 2025, along with freezes of nearly NT$90 billion, though some of the frozen funds were later unfrozen.

The KMT, unsurprisingly, has pushed back against the DPP's narrative.

The recall efforts have been called an act of "injustice" by KMT Vice Chairman Andrew Hsia (夏立言), who claimed that opposition lawmakers had been labeled as Chinese Communist Party collaborators "without a shred of evidence" during a news briefing on July 9.

Maintaining checks and balances in the government is critical in a democracy, Hsia said, adding that the party would do its utmost to help its lawmakers retain their seats.

KMT Legislator-at-Large Ko Ju-chun (葛如鈞), meanwhile, condemned the recalls against his colleagues as a politically motivated campaign orchestrated by the DPP, accusing the ruling party of abusing the system to silence opposition voices.

Make-or-break moment

To regain control of the Legislature, the DPP would need to unseat at least 12 KMT lawmakers in the recall votes, giving its 51-member caucus an absolute majority in the temporarily reduced 101-seat body, Su Tzu-chiao (蘇子喬), a political science professor at Soochow University, told CNA.

The ruling party will have the advantage of running a purely offensive campaign, given that none of the dozen recall initiatives launched against its own lawmakers made it onto the ballot.

Su said that the DPP would then need to win at least six of the by-elections, which must be held within three months of successful recalls to retain its majority.

Currently, Taiwan's 113-seat national legislative body includes 52 lawmakers from the KMT -- 39 directly elected and 13 through proportional representation. The DPP holds 51 seats, the TPP has eight, and two independents who are ideologically aligned with the KMT.

Another way to gauge the recalls is whether bigwigs, such as KMT legislative caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅崐萁) -- dubbed "King of Hualien" by local media due to his long-standing political influence in the eastern county -- will be removed from office.

Removing Fu would deal a greater blow to the KMT and its influence in the Legislature than most others, given his central role in the party caucus, said Liu Jia-wei (劉嘉薇), a political science professor at National Taipei University.

This reflected the recall groups' intensified push against Fu, whom the recall groups view as the architect of opposition-backed legislation to expand the Legislative Yuan's investigative powers, limit the Constitutional Court's adjudication, and reduce the government budget by an estimated 6.6 percent.

Meanwhile, Su said that how well Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) and Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) defend their city's KMT lawmakers in the run-up to the votes could shape their bids for party leadership and even influence their chances in the 2028 presidential race.

Of the lawmakers facing recall votes, five are from Taipei -- notably KMT caucus secretary-general Wang Hung-wei (王鴻薇), seven-term legislator Lai Shyh-bao (賴士葆) and the outspoken Hsu Chiao-hsin (徐巧芯). Three others are from Taichung.

Local media have speculated Chiang and Lu to be possible contenders in the KMT's chairmanship election scheduled for September, but as of now, neither -- alongside incumbent Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) -- has officially committed to the race.

Voter turnout

While the DPP and the recall groups have built strong momentum in recent months, they can still fall short if the KMT manages to mobilize its base, along with nonpartisan and low-propensity voters, to vote in its favor, Liu said, citing poll data showing general public skepticism toward the recalls.

Taiwan's recall mechanism allows voters to remove lawmakers through public votes, but it does not follow the first-past-the-post system used in general elections.

For a recall vote to pass, the number of votes in favor of ousting a lawmaker must exceed the number of votes against. The number of votes in favor must also represent at least a quarter of all eligible voters in a given constituency.

According to Liu, the TPP will have little choice but to encourage its supporters to turn out and vote against the recalls if it hopes to preserve the opposition's majority in the Legislature.

Public polls conducted by the Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation from March to June indicated that opposition to the "mass recalls" of KMT lawmakers has hovered between 54 and 59 percent, while support for the initiatives remained below 40 percent.

Nevertheless, Su pointed to the KMT's dismal failure in advancing even a single recall proposal against a DPP lawmaker, saying that the "striking" 26-nil result raised questions about whether the party's traditionally stronger local-level mobilization capacity had become frail.

Hsia, the KMT vice chairman, acknowledged the party's poor performance in recall bids targeting DPP lawmakers.

"We didn't do well in the beginning ... We regret it, and now we are paying some of the prices," he said during the July 9 press event.

Ko, meanwhile, blamed prosecutors for launching a series of investigations into KMT members involved in recall proposals against DPP lawmakers, arguing that the aggressive actions had created "a chilling effect."

KMT Chairman Chu has led protests with the party's members and supporters in Taipei after prosecutors nationwide raided the party's local chapters in Taipei, New Taipei, Taichung, and several counties, over allegations of forged recall petition signatures.

As of now, approximately 100 KMT officials and affiliated individuals have been indicted for document forgery, violations of personal data protection laws and other offenses.

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