Political analyst Courtney Donovan Smith recounts the development of Taiwan's deepening political divide, which has culminated in a mass recall movement targeting lawmakers from the country's two major parties and calls to remove the president.
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00:00A lot is going on right now in Taiwan's politics. We're seeing a mass recall movement to remove
00:05legislators. We're hearing calls to remove Taiwan's president and even accusations that
00:10Taiwan's president and his party are weaponizing the judicial system to go after their political
00:15enemies. Have we ever seen Taiwan's politics and government so divided before?
00:20Now, what is interesting is that this mass use of recalls now on both sides, but it was
00:29primarily initiated on the pro-DPP, anti-KMT side, is unprecedented on the national level
00:37worldwide. This has never been done on such a mass scale before, either in Taiwan or worldwide.
00:44In the past, Taiwan's government has definitely been divided before.
00:48The Chen Shui-bian era, the pan-blue block of the Kuomintang, the People's First Party and the New Party,
00:59together formed a pan-blue majority against the DPP executive. So this is not new. However, of course,
01:09in this current context, there are some new elements.
01:13What has been the public's reaction to these calls to
01:16remove public officials, legislators, and even the president?
01:21Is there support for this? And do you think any of the recalls will go through?
01:24Up until very recently, definitely the enthusiasm and the motivation has been on the side of the anti-KMT recalls.
01:33However, over the last week and a half, you see KMT Chair Eric Chu has been trying out some new language,
01:41trying out some new moves, and has pivoted very sharply to the base. Now, we don't know yet whether or not
01:51Eric Chu's actions and his strategic plan to really try and rev up the KMT base will work in the long run,
02:01but in the short term, he's definitely been very successful.
02:04Well, to recall or impeach the president, which they have to get two-thirds of the legislature,
02:11and then it has to go to a vote of the public. So at this point, I think that his
02:16poll numbers are still high enough to hold on, but an eight point drop in one month is pretty dramatic.
02:27And since such a thing would not happen for months and months into the future,
02:32if that trend were to continue, it would be very bad.
02:34Now, we've just seen Taiwan's premier try to win over the three parties in the legislature to get support
02:40for this special budget to counter US tariffs. Do you think it's possible for all three parties to
02:46work together at this moment? The KMT has called on the DPP to increase the amount of money and
02:54subsidies to go toward local businesses to protect against the proposed Trump tariffs. Then I do believe
03:03there's a window for the two parties to cooperate and they will negotiate and find something in the
03:11middle. That would be the ideal situation. However, if the KMT, after calling for increased subsidies
03:19from the government, then proved intransigent and refused to compromise and held out for a much larger
03:28number, that would be a politically risky move that could go either way.