DPP Secretary-General Resigns After Failure of Recall Vote

TaiwanPlus News

The secretary-general of Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, Lin Yu-chang, has stepped down after the resounding failure of the country’s largest-ever recall vote. Beijing said the vote shows the DPP's willingness to "go completely against the will of the people." Taipei responded by saying the vote is a "concrete demonstration of Taiwan's constitutional democracy."

Transcript

00:00The secretary-general of the ruling Democratic-Progressive Party has stepped down

00:04as the party faces growing public backlash over the failure of Taiwan's biggest ever recall vote over the weekend.

00:11Rhys Ayers has been reporting on these recalls and he joins us now from our Taipei newsroom.

00:15First, Rhys, what can you tell us about this resignation?

00:21Well, Eric, as you said, the secretary-general of the DPP, Lin Yucheng,

00:25he announced his resignation this morning in a post on Facebook.

00:31And that's all following the abject failure of that recall vote over the weekend.

00:36There were 24 KMT lawmakers up for recall and not a single one of them was successfully ousted.

00:43He said in his post that he takes full responsibility for the party's shortfalls

00:49and also for not meeting the expectations of voters.

00:53He said that he handed in his resignation yesterday to the president

00:57and that all the party can do now is move forwards and they'll be doing that, I guess, without him now.

01:04There's also been public backlash on President Lai's social media feeds as well.

01:09A lot of calls asking for him to step down.

01:12It's worth remembering that this initially was a civic-led movement, this recall campaign,

01:17but that later on the DPP did give it its official backing,

01:22which is probably why we're now seeing some politicians coming out

01:25and taking responsibility for that failed vote.

01:30The lawmakers from the KMT who did survive that recall vote, which was all of them,

01:36they now cannot be up for recall for the remainder of their term.

01:40So that's going to give the KMT a bit more of a mandate in the government

01:44and also President Lai's probably going to have more of a difficult time in the legislature getting things done.

01:52It was tough for him before.

01:53It's going to be even tougher now in that opposition-controlled legislature.

01:58But for now, the DPP will be looking forwards to August 23rd,

02:03which is when that second round of votes is happening on those remaining seven KMT lawmakers.

02:10Though given what happened over the weekend,

02:13it's probably going to be difficult for them to build up the momentum for this second vote.

02:20And Rhys, what's been the response from China about all this?

02:23Well, Beijing likely very pleased with the results with the Taiwan Affairs Office

02:32making a statement rubbing salt in the wounds of the DPP.

02:37It's said that the DPP has spared no means in suppressing its political opponents,

02:43accusing them of creating a green terror situation,

02:47saying that the results of the vote exposes Taiwan's quote-unquote fake democracy

02:52and real dictatorship,

02:55and that the result shows that the DPP is fully willing to go against the will of the Taiwanese people.

03:03Now, of course, Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council has snapped back with a post saying

03:08that the recall vote actually is an expression of Taiwan's constitutional democracy.

03:16It's said that the Beijing authorities is in no position to criticize the vote,

03:21given that they have a lack of democratic experience,

03:25and urged China not to use the results of this vote for their own political gain.

03:32So kind of a typical back and forth there between China and Taiwan.

03:35No surprise that China has come out with this kind of response,

03:40as they typically do when Taiwan has any example of it exercising its democratic mechanisms.

03:47Thank you, Rhys.

03:50That was Rhys Ayers reporting live from our Taipei newsroom,

03:52and we will have more on this issue ahead of that second vote in August.

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