Ep 316 | The Great Recall Movement in Taiwan: A Historic Unprecedented Boots on the Ground Exercise in Democracy

Have you heard about the great recall movement that’s happening in Taiwan? What’s it all about?

Related Links: 

https://talkingtaiwan.com/the-great-recall-movement-effort-in-taiwan-boots-on-the-ground-ep-316/

24 lawmakers, or legislators from the Chinese Nationalist Kuomintang KMT party are being put up for a recall vote.

I don’t think the world has ever seen anything like this happen on a national level in a democracy- 24 lawmakers being recalled from office, and that number is likely to be even higher at the time that this episode gets released. It’s truly unprecedented!

This recall vote certainly didn’t happen overnight. It was through dedicated grassroots efforts, of the everyday people of Taiwan. Questions have been raised as to whether the recall efforts are a partisan politically motivated effort on the part of the Democratic Progressive Party to oust KMT legislators.

That’s what I wanted to get to the bottom of in this episode as I talked to some of the volunteers who have been boots on the ground in Taiwan’s recall effort.

As you’ll hear in this episode, what’s happening in Taiwan is a historic demonstration of the will of the people to exercise their rights in a democracy.

The island-wide effort in Taiwan to recall lawmakers has been going on since last year and I sat down to speak to three volunteers Carol, Acho and Eric about how this mass movement has successfully gone through two stages, first signatures from1% of eligible voters in a legislator’s district must be collected to initiate a recall. Then in the second stage signatures from 10% of eligible voters in a legislator’s district must collect to in order for a recall vote to proceed. The hard part is that the signatures on the 1% and 10% petitions cannot be the same.

On July 26 Taiwan’s Central Election Commission (CEC) will hold recall votes for now possibly even more than 24 KMT lawmakers.

Special thanks to Julien Oeuillet the Founding Editor of IPON (the Indo-Pacific Open News) for his help in making this interview possible.

 

Here’s a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

• What the recall movement that’s happening in Taiwan is about

• Why and how Acho, Carol and Eric volunteer their time and energy in the effort to recall legislators

• How the recall efforts are targeting pro-CCP Chinese Nationalist Kuomintang KMT legislators

• How the recall is necessary so that Taiwan’s parliament/legislature can function normally

• How the first volunteers for the recall met through a LINE group

• How what happened after the Bluebird Movement protests motivated people to attempt to recall KMT legislators

• How the Sunflower Movement compares to the recall movement

• How they vetted volunteers from outside of Taiwan who wanted to help with the recall effort in Taiwan

• How they dealt with people trying to infiltrate the recall volunteer groups

• How the recall effort got started with 10 volunteers and has grown to 500 volunteers globally

• How A-Mei one of the lead recall movement volunteers was targeted by the KMT who accused her and revealed her personal information and identity

• How the Taiwanese people feel they are at risk of losing their country to pro-CCP KMT legislators

• How the KMT has smeared and sued recall movement volunteers including Carol

• How the KMT has broken up recall movement volunteer groups

• How Carol has put her job on hold to be dedicated to being a leader of her recall movement volunteer group full-time