00:00We begin today with the latest on Taiwan's largest ever recall election.
00:05All of the two dozen opposition Kuomintang lawmakers targeted by recall campaigns look set to keep their seats.
00:12Voters cast their ballots from 8am to 4pm, and vote counting began right after polls closed.
00:19We'll have more analysis of the results later in the show.
00:22But these results aren't the end of the story.
00:24Seven more KMT lawmakers will face recalls in late August.
00:30First, though, let's go to Tiffany Wong, who's live in the Taiwan Plus newsroom.
00:34Tiffany, what's the latest?
00:39Hi, Laurel. Well, the Central Election Commission is still finishing getting those final vote counts in,
00:45but it does look like those 24 Kuomintang lawmakers who were facing recall will be able to keep their seats in Taiwan's legislature.
00:53Many of them have already come out tonight saying that they have survived these recall votes.
00:59Now, today, Taiwanese people came out to vote, and it looks like about a 50 percent voter turnout tonight.
01:06That's pretty outstanding for a non-presidential election.
01:11And in all of these cases, the votes against the recall exceeded the votes in favor of recall.
01:18And it looks like just a few of them made that 25 percent threshold of votes in favor needed to remove those lawmakers.
01:26But since those votes against exceeded that, they were not able to pass.
01:31Again, we're still waiting for the final result from the CEC.
01:35But in earlier stages, we did see, you know, a lot of these recall campaigns seem to have some pretty widespread public support.
01:43But in the end today, it looks like they just were not able to get that momentum at the polls.
01:50So the recalls started off as a civic-led movement, but the political parties were heavily involved later on.
01:57How are they responding to this?
01:59Well, the Kuomintang tonight, already several of those lawmakers facing recall came out thanking their supporters for helping them keep their roles
02:11and, you know, continuing their support a year, over a year after they were first elected.
02:17And this is a huge win for their party.
02:21They will not be able to face recall again for the rest of their terms.
02:27And their chair, Eric Zhu, also came out tonight.
02:30Let's take a listen to what he had to say.
02:32今天用选票證明台湾的民主是成熟的,台湾的民主是偉大的,我們共同守護民主,守護台湾,我們知道任何人不能夠翻桌重選,任何人不能夠選輸,還要搞大惡霸。
03:00任何人不能夠想要一黨獨大,破壞民主。
03:07更重要的,所有台灣人民選擇了安定,選擇了政府應該做事情,而不是搞惡鬥。
03:18今天不是任何一個政黨的輸贏,而是台灣人民的大勝利。
03:25Meanwhile, the ruling Democratic Progressive Party stood the most to gain if these KMT lawmakers were removed.
03:34So obviously tonight is a huge disappointment for them and their supporters.
03:38But they did come out and say that they respect the results of this election.
03:42對於這個結果,我們民進黨團,我們接受,我們也予以尊重,當然我們更要坦然地面對。
03:53不管是罷免或是反罷免,都是人民依循著憲政體制,行使憲法所賦予的基本公民權。
04:03也透過這一場大罷免的行動,時時刻刻告訴著,提醒著所有的國家代議士。
04:11公民社會透過直接的民權,會對每一位民意代表持續地監督。
04:18公民社會透過直接的民權。
04:20Well, initially, the recall campaigners were hoping to remove enough KMT lawmakers to give the DPP an edge in the legislature.
04:28But it looks like the DPP is still going to be a minority in that chamber.
04:33And that means they're going to face difficulties in passing their own legislation and also in advancing DPP President Lai Qingde's agenda.
04:41Now, looking forward, there will be seven more KMT lawmakers facing recall in August.
04:47But looking at the results tonight, which show a huge upset to these recall campaigns, it's going to be a tough battle ahead.
04:55Thanks, Tiffany. That was Tiffany Wong reporting live from our newsroom in Taipei.
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