Taiwanese lawmaker Freddy Lim keeps seat after failed recall

TAIPEI - A vote to recall independent Taiwanese lawmaker Freddy Lim fell short of its goal on Sunday (Jan 9), despite having more votes that supported his recall than those opposing.

Wanhua and Zhongzheng, the two Taipei districts that Mr Lim represents in the Legislative Yuan, saw only 39 per cent and 43 per cent, respectively, of eligible voters cast their ballots in the recall vote.

For the recall to happen, more than 25 per cent of eligible voters in the two districts - or 58,756 votes - would have to be in favour of removing Mr Lim from his seat, but there were only 54,813 "yes" votes.

Mr Lim, a legislator serving his second term in office, happens to also be the frontman of well-known death metal band Chthonic and is often identifiable in a crowd of politicians with his signature ponytail.

Now shorn of his long locks, Mr Lim is a popular lawmaker among younger voters who believe he is not afraid to speak his mind on sensitive issues like cross-strait tensions.

He first faced cries for his recall in July last year, when Taiwan was in its first-ever semi-lockdown due to a series of local Covid-19 transmissions, with Wanhua district being one of the hotspots.

Residents in Wanhua district complained that Mr Lim had done little to express his concern for those living in his legislative district during the outbreak. Others also chimed in, saying he supported the imports of American pork that contained traces of the chemical ractopamine, as well as Taiwan's independence, another touchy topic among Taiwanese.

Mr Lim is the second legislator to face a recall vote in less than three months. Mr Chen Po-wei, Taiwan Statebuilding Party's first-ever candidate to win a lawmaker seat, was removed from his position as the representative to a Taichung district that has historically been pro-Kuomintang.

"It's possible that voters are feeling the fatigue from frequent recall votes," said Professor Wang Yeh-lih of National Taiwan University's Department of Political Science.

Prof Wang cited the 2017 amendment of Taiwan's election laws that lowered the bar for a recall vote to happen.

"If the bar isn't raised, then we might be seeing more of these (recalls) in the near future, especially when there have been recent successful cases," he said.

Like Mr Lim, Mr Chen is also pro-independence and is friendly with the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). The election to fill his empty seat was also held on Sunday, in which the DPP's Dr Lin Ching-yi ran against Mr Chen's former competitor Yen Kuan-heng and won.

Congratulating Dr Lin, Mr Yen said he would "continue to work hard", and called for President Tsai Ing-wen to "treat the voters of District 2 well and resolve Taichung's air pollution problems".

Mr Yen's family has been involved in Taichung's local politics for decades, his father being a former lawmaker as well.

"It looks like swing voters have been unhappy with the Yen family for a long time," said a netizen on Taiwan's Reddit equivalent, PTT, while others suggested that people were displeased with the city government's decision to reroute a metro line to avoid using Mr Yen's family land.