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DPP faces crushing defeat in recall vote against KMT

Global Times

People of Taiwan once again said 'no' to DPP's malicious political farce: spokesperson

By Zhao Yusha Published: Aug 24, 2025 08:51 PM

The second round of a recall vote against seven legislators of the Chinese Kuomintang (KMT) party on the island of Taiwan failed on Saturday, with none of the recall proposals being passed. The crushing defeat of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in both rounds of voting underscores local residents' disdain for the party's political abuse and its excessive focus on political maneuvering at the expense of addressing crucial livelihood issues, said experts from across the Straits.

The voting took place from 8 am to 4 pm on Saturday across the island. Ballot counting revealed that the "no" votes prominently outnumbered the "yes" votes, marking another sweeping victory for the KMT against the recall campaign, per the Xinhua News Agency.

After two rounds of voting in vain, the DPP still remains a minority party in the island's legislature, holding 51 seats out of 113.

It is believed the DPP authorities plotted the recall campaign against KMT legislators in an attempt to turn around its minority in the legislature. The first recall vote was held on July 26, which also suffered a significant defeat, Xinhua reported.

Zhu Fenglian, spokesperson for the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office, said on Sunday that the results of the second recall targeting legislators of the KMT party in Taiwan shows that "Taiwan independence" separatism clearly runs against the will of the people and is doomed to fail.

"Following the first round of voting on July 26, the people of Taiwan have once again said 'no' to the DPP's malicious political farce," Zhu said.

An opinion piece titled "the public opinion against the recall is deafening" published by the island's China Times said that "the mainstream public opinion has already cast a vote of no confidence in Lai's government."

Another Taiwan media outlet, Newtalk, titled its report "The Recall, Massive Overturn," to cover the DPP's defeat.

People expect the DPP government to improve the public's livelihood and build the island instead of launching a recall campaign for political maneuvering, and the defeat shows Taiwan public's detest and fatigue over DPP's political farce, Chang Ya-chung, president of the Sun Yat-sen School in Taiwan and a member of the KMT, told the Global Times on Sunday, noting that the failure has dealt a huge blow to the image of the DPP and Lai.

Simmering public discontent

The cost of the two recall votes was about NT$402.8 million ($12.59 million), according to Taiwan authority's calculation, Taiwan's mnews.tw reported on Sunday.

The cost of the recall campaign has garnered criticism within the island. After the first recall vote, KMT legislator Lai Shyh-bao slammed the DPP for spending money on politics instead of focusing on disaster relief in central and southern Taiwan, where Typhoon Danas wreaked havoc, according to Taiwan's udn news.

During the period that Lai was manipulating the recall campaign, Taiwan was mired in political stagnation and social infighting. At the same time, the island failed to secure a satisfactory trade deal with the US, said Zheng Jian, a professor at the Taiwan Research Institute of Xiamen University, in an interview with the Global Times.

He noted that the second defeat reflects the growing discontent among the public on the island, who are clearly unwilling to be dragged along any longer.

On August 1, the White House announced a 20 percent tariff on the Taiwan region - higher than the 15 percent imposed on Japan and South Korea. The announcement sparked intense debate on the island. Some local media even ran headlines likening it to "squeezing a lemon," while many people in the island mocked the tariff as a "success" of the DPP's kowtowing to the US.

Some media outlets have focused on the ripple effects following the recall results. Bloomberg said the result could "deepen [the] political deadlock."

With next year's local elections and the 2028 regional leadership race on the horizon, the divide between the KMT and the DPP is expected to deepen, Zheng said.