A total of 24.98 percent of 317,434 eligible voters in Taipei City’s Nankang and Neihu districts cast their ballots. To remove Tsai from office, the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act stipulates that at least 50 percent must take part with the majority voting in favor.
Official data indicates that of the 79,303 participating in the vote, 76,737 supported the recall, 2,196 disagreed and the remainder was invalid.
In response, Tsai described the result as a victory for democracy and the rule of law. Cheng Yun-peng, spokesman for the opposition Democratic Progressive Party, took a slightly different line, stating that the vote demonstrates the rise of civic power.
But some are concerned that this power is being stymied by the act, which imposes high thresholds on the recall process. At least 2 percent of eligible voters must sign such a motion at the initial stage, with a different 13 percent doing so during the second phrase before a ballot can be triggered.
The campaign to recall Tsai was launched by Constitutional 133 Alliance as part of its Appendectomy Project, a wordplay sounding like “cutting out blue legislators” in Chinese. Blue is the color symbolizing the KMT.
Sources familiar with the matter believe a reason for the failure of the bid is that it was not initiated by the voters in the two districts but by an outside group targeting certain KMT lawmakers.
Tsai, who will leave office Jan. 1, 2016, cannot face more than one recall motion per term. If the vote had been successful, he could not have run in the next legislative contest.
According to CEC data, only a township councilor and village chief have been recalled from 1990 to 2011. Nine legislators faced motions, with six proceeding to ballots. (VS-JSM)
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