*Election Results: Kaohsiung Voters Decide Han's Future

There are no winners in this election.

939,000 votes turned Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu into the first special municipality chief to be recalled in Taiwanese history.

Let this be a warning to all politicians: If you are not focused, you needn't wait until the end of your term to lose your job. The people raised you up; they can just as easily take you down. However, the element of uncertainty this injects into Taiwanese politics may lead to an escalation of "blue versus green" inter-party conflicts in the future. 

Even though Han vowed to refocus his efforts on governing the city after being trounced in the presidential election, his attempt at reconciliation was too little, too late. Wu Shih-chang (吳世昌), general manager of the polling company Survey and Research Co. (趨勢民調公司), says the people of Kaohsiung could not forgive Han for breaking his promise to them: “Nothing he did could ever satisfy Kaohsiung again.” This was reflected in his sagging approval ratings. 
The result of the recall election spoke to this as well.

Before the recall vote got underway, both the blue camp (Kuomintang; KMT) and the green camp (Democratic Progressive Party; DPP) projected the number of recall votes to be between 550,000 and 700,000. In the end, nearly a million—939,090, to be exact—agree ballots were cast. This is more than the 742,239 votes Han’s opponent Chen Chi-mai secured in the nine-in-one elections of 2018. It is even more than the 892,545 votes Han himself won to be elected mayor. 

How Han Fell Such a Long Way

If we look at the numbers, we can see that when Han and his “Han Wave” took the country by storm in 2018, he defeated opponent Chen Chi-mai with 54% of the valid votes in Kaohsiung. However, by the time the presidential election rolled around in 2020, Han’s outing as the KMT candidate fared far worse, winning only 35% of the votes. When the recall election took place in June, it was clear Kaohsiung would no longer suffer their mayor. If we don’t count the voters who opted to stay home, only 3% of voters supported Han. Thus, the erstwhile rising star of Taiwanese politics became the first special municipality chief to be recalled in the country’s history.

His defeat was so complete that he even lost support in the “three shans” he won during the mayoral election: the districts of Fengshan, Gangshan, and Qishan.

During the nine-in-one elections, Han won 118,000 votes in Fengshan, 32,000 votes in Gangshan, and 12,000 votes in Qishan. During the recall election, the number of votes in support of removing him from office cast by these three districts nearly matched what he won in 2018: 117,000; 32,000, and 11,000 votes, respectively. It goes to show Han no longer had any support in the “three shans”. 

“To the people of Kaohsiung, it was not just a matter of trust, but a question of face,” says Cheng-shan Liu (劉正山), Professor and Director at the Institute of Political Science in National Sun Yat-sen University. As the biggest city in the south, Kaohsiung bemoans the fact it has fallen behind Taipei. The people of Kaohsiung needed a leader who cared, a chief who could bring about meaningful reform. Han rode high on the wave of change and drew a pie in the sky. When he failed to deliver, the people of Kaohsiung turned on him. 

“Face” is something Kaohsiung cares about deeply. The night before the recall, a taxi driver named Hong rolls down his car window to gesture the number six. “I will definitely go vote.” His color rises as he continues to speak. “I am sick and tired of customers from other cities making fun of me by asking: ‘Have you gotten rich yet?’, invoking Han’s slogan.”

In the mayoral election of 2018, taxi drivers were among Han’s most rabid supporters. That ship has sailed. Hong reveals that many of them really believed Han’s promise to help everyone get rich. “He did not live up to his promise. There’s a difference between ‘failing to deliver’ and ‘not even trying’. He was off to pursue the presidency within three months of being elected. Did he even try to help Kaohsiung?”

The Rise and Fall of the “Han Wave” was About the Economy

It cannot be denied that the rise and fall of the “Han Wave” has everything to do with the economy. Four-term Kaohsiung City Councilor Wu Yi-cheng (吳益政) represents the districts of Qianjin, Sinsing, and Lingya. These are the traditional strongholds of teachers and civil servants. He thinks the advent of the “Han Wave” was preceded by the deep sense of betrayal many public servants felt when pension reform was enacted in Taiwan. President Tsai’s amended Labor Standards Law also failed to appease either employers or employees. Many SMEs that used to vote green vented their outrage by swinging the other way during the mayoral election. 

“As the saying goes, ‘It’s the economy, stupid.’” Wu uses himself as an example. At the height of Han’s popularity, a Han supporter got into a bitter war of words with him on the Internet. Wu sued. When they met in court, he discovered his opponent was a truck driver who benefited from the delivery of goods between China and Taiwan, which had been made possible by the “Mini Three Links” policy. When the DPP came into power, China clamped down on trade. The result was that the truck driver was deprived of his livelihood.

Kaohsiung’s support of Han was part retaliation against the DPP, and part wishful thinking that Han could bring new prosperity to the city. Wu says many of Han’s votes were swing votes or first-time votes for the KMT. “People voted for him because they expected him to offer a solution. It’s a shame that he did not focus on structure transformation and policymaking. Instead, he ran for president.”

The successful recall election has taught politicians the meaning of fear. There are consequences for making empty political promises. The electorate is watching. 

“This will make every political figure humbler and more willing to listen to the people. It will make them work harder to fulfill political promises,” says Huang Po-lin (黃柏霖), KMT Kaohsiung City Council member and former head of the KMT’s headquarters in Kaohsiung.

Behind a Successful Recall, the Ugly Signs of a Political Brawl

“There is a reason why political offices come with terms. In principle, the elected candidate has four years to fulfill promises, or they will face defeat in the next election,” says one political scholar who declined to be named. Overly frequent recalls, or holding a recall election as soon as the winner assumes office, can certainly cause political instability. “But recalls are not as simple as people assume. There are multiple hoops to jump through, from drafting the petition to collecting signatures to casting ballots. If public opinion is not united behind a contentious issue, it’s actually very difficult for a recall vote to pass.”

In truth, though the recall process was initiated by a civil body, the key political power behind its success is none other than former Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu of the Democratic Progressive Party. One individual familiar with the recall campaign reveals that there are many pitfalls in the current recall rules that could have easily derailed the process. It is an uneven battle that places the average citizen, who has no connections or resources, at a severe disadvantage. For example, it is not required for the candidate to have been in office for a year to initiate a petition, but it is required for the candidate to have been in office for a year before the petitioners can start collecting signatures. The very petition itself requires a great deal of manpower. None of this would have been possible without the backing of Chen Chu and her political base. 

Another factor was Han’s own strategic blunder, which incited the people of Kaohsiung to take forceful action. “Han’s call for his supporters to boycott the election caused a great deal of panic in the beginning,” says the person familiar with his recall. The point of a secret ballot is to let voters cast their ballots with an easy mind. Han’s move was designed to force his detractors to reveal themselves. This kind of shady maneuvering left a sour taste in people’s mouths. 

Though plenty of government employees declined to vote, many more voters were so discontent that their passivity turned into proactive action. The feedback loop eventually led to a mass “protest against terror” demonstration, which saw 100,000 citizens take to the streets of Kaohsiung on a weekend evening. 

Although what went down in Kaohsiung will be looked back upon as an exciting entry in the history of Taiwanese democracy, there are side effects, the first of which was President Tsai Ing-wen’s entry into the fray, which she did in her position as the DPP Chair during the last week before the election. “She failed to grasp the nuances of a party-based ruling system. It is unbecoming of her position as the president of the nation.” Kaohsiung City Councilor Wu, who holds a master’s degree in international political economy from Columbia University, offers this critique. 

What this means is all future conflicts may result in hostile standoffs instead of cooperation and compromise. 

Professor Liu of Sun Yat-sen University also thinks the value of the recall vote was supposed to be its nature as a grassroots movement, a referendum on whether the mayor was suited to his office. According to Liu, it should have remained a local affair. The DPP’s last-minute intervention took the agency and the voice away from the people of Kaohsiung. Too much involvement from political parties wound up dividing the electorate along sharply defined ideological lines. “It was not a teachable moment for Taiwan’s democracy.”

 
Another factor was meddling by local legislators. “By definition, a legislator is an agent of the people in a representative democracy. But their role constitutes a paradox in the recall process, which is a form of direct democracy.” Liu notes that he witnessed no KMT legislators coming to Han’s defense with evidence of his mayoral achievements; nor did he see DPP legislators actually debating the reasons for Han’s recall. It all became a political melee between the two parties. 

The recall vote may be over, but the governance of Kaohsiung must go on. Will the city become more radicalized and fragmented?

“Whether the next mayor hails from the blue or green camp, they’ve got their work cut out for them, because the split has gotten worse,” says Kaohsiung City Council member Huang Po-lin. The new mayor must take over the governance of a divided city while also preparing for the next election.

After the recall, politicians on either the local or central level should be walking on thin ice. Taiwan’s electorate has realized the power of the recall vote. No elected official can expect to serve out a four-year term without working hard to prove they deserve every day they spend in office.

Have you read?
♦ Kaohsiung Voters Decide Han's Future
♦ The KMT’s Presidential Nominee: Who Are Han Kuo-yu’s Hardcore Fans?
♦ Why Han Kuo-yu Lost the 2020 Presidential Election

Translated by Jack Chou
Edited by TC Lin
Uploaded by Judy Lu