Tens of thousands of people descended on Ketagalan avenue in central Taipei this Thursday to support Saturday’s recall, which will see 24 legislators from Taiwan’s opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) facing potential dismissal. On Friday, tens of thousands more gathered at the same spot, this time to rally against it.
Taiwan’s legislature is currently controlled by a coalition between the KMT and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) that has sought to obstruct elements of President Lai Ching-te’s (賴清德) agenda including defense spending and the staffing of the Constitutional Court. If the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) can replace six members of the KMT majority, they will regain control. That prospect has Taipei residents on edge, and — as Domino Theory found when we ventured into the rain-soaked crowds — eager to talk.
The recall is a necessary corrective against a gridlocked government, said Nancy Hsu, a wealth manager from Taipei. “If the recall succeeds,” she added at the DPP rally on Thursday, “the Constitutional Court will be filled out and the democratic order will be restored.”
But what strikes some voters as orderliness looks to others like single-party rule. “If the recall happens, DPP will have full control,” said Celine, a sales manager in tech who only gave her first name, at the KMT rally on Friday night. “It is unhealthy because it’s only their people making the decision. No other opinion can exist.”
A 79-year-old hot pot restaurant owner named Wu (吳), who only gave his surname, went further. “If we don’t come out to show our support today. This country is finished,” he said. “This Lai administration is so dictatorial that Lai himself is even more of a dictator than Kim Jong Un of North Korea! It’s a matter of time [before] this country will be on its way to death.” Wu’s bombastic rhetoric was not out of place at the KMT rally, where banners declared the DPP as “evil” and “green communists” and speakers repeatedly claimed that their opponents do not love Taiwan.
But any pro-recall claims to the mantle of civility were undermined when, during a rousing anti-recall speech by the Taiwanese YouTuber Holger Chen (陳之漢), a man rushed from stage right to shower him in yellow incense paper burned for the dead. “Be gentle with these ‘Bluebirds,’” Chen responded, referring to the widespread protest movement that emerged last year in response to the KMT-TPP coalition’s plan to expand the legislature’s power. “Taiwan’s democracy is being degraded by actions like these DPP people.”
One reason the recall has become so contentious is the behavior of China, whose ever-escalating preparations to take Taiwan by force hung over the proceedings like a swarm of drones. “We wish for Taiwan to be a free and democratic country,” said Rex He (何), who referred to himself as an ordinary office worker, at the DPP rally on Thursday. “What we don’t need is to allow a pro-China party to infringe on our freedom of democracy.”
He continued: “I think it’s like what many speakers at the rally said: the wars have already begun. China’s power is everywhere. Whether in Taiwan or around the world, China is directly or indirectly affecting the politics and the economy of every country. I think if the recall is successful today, I think it will be a step further on the road toward [making Taiwan] a free and democratic Asian country.”
Yo Yo, a 40-year-old university teacher from Taipei who was standing nearby, agreed. “If it succeeds,” he said, “I think it will send a clear message to both the ruling party and the opposition party, whether it is the KMT, the DPP or the TPP, that Taiwanese society wants to go its own way and does not want to be with China. It also does not welcome legislators who pass plans to damage the national defense.”
To Li Wei-han (李為瀚), 40, who works at a cram school, the relationship between patriotism and partisan affiliation is not so clear cut. Li supports the KMT but his father does not. “He has learned from childhood that the KMT is bad and that only the DPP truly loves Taiwan,” Li said at the KMT rally on Friday. “The DPP’s posters with four words, ‘resist China and protect Taiwan (抗中保台),’ allow the Taiwanese people to say that we must vote for the DPP to love Taiwan. This is wrong.”
Amid all the rancor, some rallygoers grasped for reconciliation. “This recall is no longer a blue-green showdown,” He, the 39-year-old office worker, said, referring to Taiwan’s color-coded political coalitions.“It is about everyone being willing to put aside their party affiliations and their antagonisms and embrace one another.” He later added: “I believe that as long as we are united, we will succeed and will move toward success. If we fail, then I think no matter what, I believe that every citizen in Taiwan, every citizen on this land is willing to defend this country.”
A 20-year-old college student whose surname is Chuang, who attended the KMT rally on Friday, declined to make any strong predictions. “I think it’s going to be a close call,” he said. If the relative size and energy of the crowds — which both managed to shut down an entire city block and a third of the adjacent roundabout — are any indication, then he will be correct.
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