Attempt to recall KMT caucus whip Fu Kun-chi fails

Hualien/Taipei, July 26 (CNA) A public vote aimed at removing the main opposition Kuomintang's (KMT) legislative caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅崐萁) from office failed to secure enough support on Saturday.

The people of Hualien "have shown through unity and justice" that "fairness still exists in Taiwan," said Fu, a KMT heavyweight who has led the party's caucus in Taiwan's national legislature since January 2024, as he celebrated his win before supporters in Hualien County.

He said that over the past year, he had been the target of an intense "political takedown" perpetrated by informal civic groups leading recall efforts both in and beyond Hualien, as well as by the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).

The DPP has denied direct involvement in the recall initiatives targeting 31 out of 39 directly elected lawmakers from the KMT but has come out in full support of the efforts in recent months.

Fu said he hoped that "after today ... Taiwan will return to stability and prosperity," adding that "the society must not be further divided."

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Following the recall vote on Saturday, Lee Mei-ling (李美玲), the lead petitioner of the recall campaign against Fu, said she believed the campaign has sparked a democratic awakening in Hualien.

Lee said Hualien has long been a place where public discourse is monopolized by a few, and where public resources are distributed unevenly, and while the recall was not successful, she expected civic groups to continue to focus on local development and oversight of public policy to build a better Hualien.

The Hualien lawmaker was among the first KMT lawmakers to declare he had survived the recall, even as the vote count was still ongoing.

With all of the votes counted, 65,300 votes were cast against Fu's recall, compared to 48,969 in favor, according to the Central Election Commission.

Under Taiwanese law, for a recall vote to pass in Fu's constituency, votes favoring the recall had to outnumber those against and also represent at least one-quarter of 191,367 eligible voters -- or a minimum of 47,842 votes.

The votes in favor met the threshold, barely, but Fu was able to turn out his support base to cast a higher number of ballots opposed to his removal.

Fu also called on President Lai Ching-te (賴清德), who concurrently serves as the DPP's chair, to acknowledge the recall outcome and initiate open dialogue with the opposition, as Taiwan grapples with economic volatility and strained cross-Taiwan Strait relations.

While 23 other recall motions targeting KMT lawmakers were held across Taiwan on Saturday, with all of them failing, the vote against Fu was seen by some observers as a litmus test for the broader recall movement.

For weeks, the DPP and others involved in the nationwide recall efforts intensified their campaign against Fu, whom they viewed as the architect of controversial legislation that they argued could pose national security risks to Taiwan amid its increasingly fraught relations with China.

Campaigners were particularly vocal in their criticism of Fu, accusing him of advancing Beijing's political interests in Taiwan's Legislature after he met with Chinese Politburo member Wang Huning (王滬寧) in Beijing in April 2024.

Despite those efforts, the failure to remove Fu from office was perhaps unsurprising, reflecting the enduring political influence he and his family wield in the eastern county of Taiwan.

The 63-year-old is a five-term legislator from Hualien over the course of the past two decades.

Prior to being re-elected to the Legislature in 2020, Fu served nearly nine years as Hualien County magistrate -- winning over 55 percent of the vote in two elections, even while facing multiple prosecutions.

He was convicted of stock manipulation in 2018 and subsequently removed from office.

He served approximately 10 months in prison before being released on parole.

During that time, however, Fu's wife, Hsu Chen-wei (徐榛蔚), won the local government election in November 2018 and succeeded him in office later that year.

Hsu is now serving her second term.