Ever since the Kuomintang's (KMT) former Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) lost his job after being voted out by nearly 940,000 recall votes, his supporters, collectively known as "Han Fans," as well as the KMT hierarchy, have made pro-Taiwan figures and politicians their number one enemy.
Taiwan Statebuilding Party politician Chen Po-wei (陳柏惟) has always been top of that list.
Chen was one of Han's harshest critics when Han was spruiking (talking in public) about outlandish electoral promises during his election campaign for both his tilt in the 2018 local government vote and Han's failed run for presidency. The reality is, Chen was right all along.
Han was not fit to govern. Han's fans and voters, however, are using the same recall function and using Taiwan electoral law to get revenge by seeking Chen's removal from the legislature.
Yen Kuan-heng (顏寬恒) was not amused at losing his seat to Chen, and is now amassing significant resources to get him out of town. The Yens and the KMT, being such sore losers, display bad sportsmanship with their desperation to force Chen Po-wei out of the Legislative Yuan, which he won fair and square via a democratic election.
The carpet bombing of media disinformation and smears on Chen's personal attributes and mistakes from an impoverished past wrought by the KMT/CCP leaning/funded media sources on mainstream and social media is beyond what is fair and reasonable and very much amounts to legitimized bullying.
If the KMT gets its way, it will inflict further unrest, stalling question time and national budget allocations in the legislature, by pushing through aimless motions with no real benefit to the Taiwan taxpayer. This type of disruption has already been recognized as a matter of international concern, with one of the most recent individuals to have spoken up being former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
What is even more concerning, however, is the issue of national security, as Chen is also part of the national defense and foreign affairs committee. With him out of the way, and the threat of recall for another member of the committee, independent legislator Freddy Lim (林昶佐), the committee opens itself up to a possible KMT majority, which could then stall defense funding and pass state secrets as well as sensitive military matters into the wrong hands.
The KMT's pro-China stance and its backdoor to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) are already widely known. At this point, you may be asking yourself, what does the CCP have to gain with a successful recall on such a minority party in a minor seat in central Taiwan?
The CCP has plenty to gain from getting rid of Chen. It is already a widely known fact that the CCP has been subverting the Taiwan electoral system.
The CCP needs its cronies in the KMT and other pro-CCP affiliated parties to gain an upper hand by any means possible, including forcing the recall of any candidate that humiliated them, namely those with Taiwan independence views — with Chen Po-wei and Freddy Lim top of the list.
CCP media mouthpiece CCTV has even broadcast current affair programs with blatantly clear and precise instructions to the KMT and their supporters on how to get rid of Chen and Lim. This is a clear indication the CCP has a major hand in the drive to recall Chen.
The CCP, KMT, and the Yens have also poured significant resources and manpower into this recall vote against the tiny Taiwan Statebuilding Party. The comparisons could not be starker.
The baton is now in the voters' hands in Taichung city's 2nd electoral district. They must now choose between keeping a well-intentioned, high-performing legislator in his job, or being bullied by the local mafia backed by the two most tyrannical regimes in Asia, to keep the good old days of the corrupt establishment running their rackets in Gotham city.
Their choice will likely impact the entire Taiwan political landscape, as it may allow CCP-aligned forces to gain another foothold in the Taiwan democratic process.
The voters need to realize also that their choice may have far wider consequences than living in fear of local mafia coercion. Their choice may be felt all the way to foreign relations and national security concerns, which may affect the direction this country may head in the future.
If you have not made up your mind on whether to go home on Oct. 23 to vote, I implore you to go home and vote no recall, as every single vote counts.
Why should those outside of Taiwan be concerned with this recall vote? We should be highly concerned as China and the CCP are using the same smear tactics and disinformation elsewhere worldwide, to suit their narrative of invasion and to corrupt democratic processes to install their cronies.
Should the Chen recall be successful, China is likely to replicate the same methods on any politician they dislike in any country they are trying to influence. I can name several politicians and leaders in countries like the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Japan, Australia, the U.K., France that have already "offended" China and who the CCP would be more than happy to remove.
Should Chen be pushed out of office, China will have opened Pandora's box to invasion without a single bullet or missile fired, and make the international community more vulnerable than ever to Chinese threats of invasion and war.
Choose carefully, voters of Taichung City's 2nd district. The world is watching.
