TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — With one week before a major round of recall elections on July 26, KMT leaders gathered in Taichung Saturday evening, calling on voters to reject the recall efforts brought by the DPP. 

Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), the highest-ranking KMT member in government, told supporters that “Taiwan’s democracy is on the edge of a cliff,” reported UDN. 

With 24 of 31 legislative recall elections scheduled for next Saturday, Han said it would be a “political massacre” if the DPP’s campaign to remove sitting KMT legislators were to succeed. Han said Taiwan risks falling into a “one-party dictatorship,” and urged voters not to let the strategy succeed. 

Han said many dedicated legislators have been in office for less than a year, and they are already being targeted for removal. He equated the recall campaign, organized by DPP caucus chair Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) and endorsed by President Lai Ching-te (賴清德), to an airplane in preparation to take flight, which is attacked before being permitted to leave the runway. 

The KMT legislators are being targeted by the DPP in an effort to wrest legislative power from Han and the KMT, and their coalition partners, the Taiwan’s People’s Party. Earlier this year, Ker Chien-ming said the mass recall campaign was necessary to resolve government deadlock. 

The DPP will need to successfully recall six opposition legislators to shift the balance of power in the legislature. However, current laws dictate that in order to remove Han as legislative speaker before his term of office has ended, the DPP would need to flip 24 legislative seats to achieve a super-majority.

The rally in Taichung was the largest anti-recall rally held by the KMT to date, with an estimated 24,000 people in attendance, per UDN.