The drama of the country’s divided government just played out in a failed, high-stakes vote to recall two-dozen opposition legislators. How both sides respond could determine the fate of Taiwan’s democracy.
By Raymond Kuo
July 2025
Taiwan held a massive recall vote on July 26, threatening to remove 24 opposition Kuomintang (KMT) politicians from the legislature. This would have endangered the party’s combined majority with the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), possibly returning Taiwan to unified government under the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
But surprisingly, all the recalls failed. Only in seven did the “yes to recall” vote even exceed the necessary threshold for the measure to pass, and nine KMT incumbents actually gained votes compared with their 2024 election tallies. The DPP’s secretary-general submitted his resignation, and the opposition parties have trumpeted the outcome as a “strategic milestone” for their efforts to curtail the administration of President William Lai, who was elected in 2024.
But the recall saga — and how Taiwan got there — portends long-term, structural threats to the country’s democracy. Functioning democracies require forbearance; parties refrain from using all legal or institutional prerogatives for political gain, as they damage the wider political system. Instead, Taiwan’s opposition parties have played constitutional hardball for the past year and a half.
KMT and TPP legislators passed controversial reforms in an attempt to seize powers from the executive and judiciary. Taiwan’s constitutional court struck down most of those measures. The legislature then voted down new appointees to that court and raised the quorum of justices required to hear a case, in effect preventing it from legally operating. This all came in the midst of a budget battle that slashed funding along partisan lines, setting the DPP government up for failure. The KMT and TPP parties also attempted to shift budgetary control to local-level governments, where they hold a majority of county and city leadership positions.
Any lingering Pollyanna beliefs among voters that “everyone won” the 2024 election gave way to a realization that Taiwan has few institutional means to resolve competing executive and legislative prerogatives within divided government. The parties were effectively stuck with each other until the next national elections in 2028. Ongoing gridlock, however, threatened government functions, even as Taiwan needs to demonstrate resolve to Beijing and Washington, respectively.
So Taiwan’s vibrant civil society tried to force a resolution through widespread recall efforts, which failed on Saturday.
The campaign revealed two potential threats to Taiwan’s democracy. The first threat is that the campaign itself may set a worrying precedent. If recalls become normalized, electoral losers will simply wait a year (due to procedural restrictions) and launch a campaign. Elected officials would have only that year to govern, while their opponents have every incentive to obstruct the government’s agenda. In effect, each candidate would have to win two elections, with the second (recall) having a higher bar than the first. Good governance would struggle to survive in this environment.
The second threat depends on what legislative measures the opposition parties adopt in response to this campaign. Taiwanese commentators have already suggested that those parties will raise the recall thresholds, making recalls much harder in the future.
However, the KMT and TPP could also attack the societal foundations for recalls: Civil society organizations and grassroots movements. The DPP has long enjoyed deeper relationships with Taiwan’s civil society, having itself been born from democracy NGOs. Recent mass-mobilization efforts — the Sunflower movement, the Bluebird movement — have risen to support Green-leaning policies and initiatives.
The opposition parties could opt to better appeal to civil society, and the KMT seems to have run an effective ground game. But it is equally possible that they will seek out ways to inhibit the influence of NGOs. This could include partisan investigations, challenges to organizations’ NGO tax status, accusations of foreign influence, or other measures restricting civic participation. Indeed, opposition legislators have already tried this tactic against one prominent civil-defense NGO.
If successful, such strategies could mitigate the opposition parties’ weakness, but they would simultaneously reduce the accountability and representativeness of Taiwan’s political institutions. Taiwan’s party system has already shown worrying — though not yet widespread — cracks. These include the spread of conspiracy theories, more than a thousand dead people “signing” recall petitions, mutual accusations of authoritarianism despite multiple independent organizations rating Taiwan as among the most democratic and free countries globally, and even a shameful Nazi display.
If Taiwan’s democracy isn’t to be the ultimate loser in this fight, then the KMT and TPP must engage in serious structural reform. Healthy democracies require strong (center-right) parties to both offer loyal opposition and serve as a bulwark against extremism. Strong parties have deep and often formal links with their members and broader society. They ingest public and expert opinion to derive policies under a coherent platform, then advance that agenda in the legislature. They must cultivate and train generations of political leaders. All this points to a need for strong organization, empowered leadership, and comprehensive policy-development processes.
Unfortunately, neither the KMT nor the TPP approach this archetype. Political polarization, thermostatic opinion, and a (mostly) first-past-the-post electoral system allow them to win elections. But these parties are institutionally weak, unable to perform many of the representative, policy, and accountability functions that only parties can provide. Instead, they have leaned into polarizing rhetoric, negative campaigning, and (literal) legislative fights to obstruct, rather than trying to advance their own political agenda.
Other countries can help Taiwan’s opposition parties break this pattern. The National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute shared best practices on crafting legislative strategies, cultivating members and new leaders, and establishing policymaking processes through party strengthening and development programs. The Party Internationals can facilitate exchange with ideologically like-minded parties and NGOs. Party-affiliated and independent foundations can provide similar support, as well as broadening society-to-society contacts.
In Taiwan’s ongoing conflict with China, democracy is a critical strategic advantage that needs preservation and strengthening. Democracies disproportionately win the wars they fight, can better mobilize resources for conflicts, and fight harder for victory. The vibrancy and responsiveness of Taiwan’s democracy enhance its resistance to Chinese and other foreign influence and disinformation campaigns. Democracy is also intimately linked to the Taiwanese sense of national identity, one of the strongest predictors of whether a country can survive (or even resurrect itself from) a conquest attempt.
The DPP clearly has some soul-searching to do. But it is critical for Taiwan to understand where the recall campaign came from and avoid over-correcting in a way that damages its hard-won democracy. Despite accusations of authoritarianism, the recall campaign was Taiwan’s political system working. Recalls provide a critical safety valve in presidential systems, which otherwise divorce political support from institutional authority. Rather than dismantling or restricting this tool, the KMT and TPP should engage in organizational strengthening to provide Taiwan with a strong, cohesive, and loyal opposition.
Raymond Kuo is the director of RAND’s Taiwan Policy Initiative and a senior political scientist at RAND. He is an expert in international security, international order, and East Asia.
Copyright © 2025 National Endowment for Democracy
Image credit: I-Hwa Cheng/AFP via Getty Images
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