Humble Pie: Is Han Kuo-yu’s Eye on Another Prize Beyond the Recall Vote?

Kaohsiung residents will vote on Taiwan’s highest-level recall election ever on Saturday to determine the fate of the city’s mayor, Han Kuo-yu 韓國瑜.

The anti-Han camp, composed of a combination of civic groups, has been vocal, active, and organized. The pro-Han camp has employed a variety of tactics to counter them, most notably calling for supporters to boycott the vote altogether.

However, whatever the result of the vote, it is unlikely that Han will fade from the political scene. What a successful recall might mean for the future of Han’s Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is a more complicated question. With public sentiment toward the party at historic lows, Han remains popular with party members and could leverage this in a run for party chair in 2021 should he be relieved of his mayoral duties.

The Han camp has employed two strategies to counter the recall campaign. The first was to challenge the legality of the motion in court, a strategy that has failed to date.

The second, started just shy of three weeks before the vote, is to employ a dampening effect, in part to discourage votes in favor of recalling Han and also to make the vote less of a scar on his future political ambitions should he lose.

This strategy seems to have been effective. Han and the KMT are encouraging Kaohsiung residents not to vote and have framed the recall vote as the work of rabble rousers who are intent on stoking division and discontent in the city, rather than appreciating Han’s self-proclaimed reformed attitude and hard work in recent months. It’s an effort to downplay the recall effort as an unseemly affair that reasonable residents need not concern themselves with.

Kaohsiung mayor Han Kuo-yu at work. (Credit: Han Kuo-yu Facebook)

On May 15, Han issued a video apology to the citizens of Kaohsiung on his Facebook page, calling on his supporters to “go out for a stroll, spend money and, as much as possible, not allow their lives and their businesses to be affected by politics.”

The KMT has backed the strategy. United Daily News reported on May 20 that KMT chairman Johnny Chiang 江啟臣 and KMT secretary-general Lee Chien-lung 李乾龍 “are actively mobilizing KMT cadres and members in Kaohsiung to call on Han’s supporters ‘not to vote’ in the recall election in hopes of reducing the voter turnout.”

On May 30, as required by the election law, a televised briefing was held in which both sides could present their positions. Han, as he had indicated from early May, declined to appear, saying he would spend the time on city governance: namely, inspecting crops in light of recent damage from seasonal torrential rains.

Since May 31, Han’s Facebook posts, which aim to portray a humble and hardworking mayor, have been hash tagged #建設有成幸福高雄, or “Building a Happy Kaohsiung.” This underlines Han’s attempt to cast recall backers as being troublesome and uninterested in creating a harmonious city.

UDN further reported on May 31 that, “in order to cooperate with Han’s advocacy of ‘prioritizing city governance,’” the KMT had “galvanized solidarity of 15 counties and cities, under KMT governance, to strive for tourism and revitalization in hopes of diluting the recall issue.”

On Monday, UDN added that, in the final stretch, the Han counter campaign is based on 5 ‘won’t dos’: Han will not publicly address the matter of the recall; no counter recall activities will be held; no counter recall rallies will be held; they will not actively recruit political allies to attend on June 6; and Han will not issue any statements regarding the results on the day of the recall.

Han is attempting to pivot away from his previous campaigns, renowned for their rather bombastic style, and his reputation as a gambler and womanizer with gangland connections to an image of a humble, hardworking mayor who will not enter the fray of the recall campaign.

The Han Kuo-yu recall campaign has been organized and vocal. (Credit: WeCare Kaohsiung)

This strategy appears to have gained ground. Eryk Michael Smith, ICRT’s southern Taiwan correspondent and a Ketagalan Media contributor, suggests that “it demonstrates a kind of surrender to the will of the people and a humility that is actually going over a reasonably well here.”

In terms of numbers, the officially sanctioned KMT strategy of asking Han supports to boycott the vote may seem odd, in that both the minimum turnout and votes consenting to the recall are both set at 25% of the electorate, or 575,091 voters.

Should “Agree” (pro-recall) voters reach that target, the only way for the recall motion to be defeated is for “Disagree” voters to outnumber “Agree” voters. If Han supporters heed calls not to vote, it seems unlikely that a dissenting majority could be achieved. Whereas a recall motion would be passed should only Han opponents turnout provided they meet the 25% threshold.

So what is the KMT’s game plan in calling for a boycott? According to Dafydd Fell, director of the Taiwan Studies Department at SOAS University of London, this strategy has been successfully employed by the KMT in past referendums. A 2004 referendum on cross-strait relations and 2008 plebiscites on United Nations measures and transitional justice both failed due to insufficient turnout, he noted. At the time, however, the required turnout was set at 50%—a bar which was lowered to 25% when the referendum law was revised in 2017.

This strategy “has often given the KMT the image of being anti-democratic,” Fell said. “Overall I feel it is the wrong move as if they did truly mobilize for a back Han vote, even if Han loses narrowly, it would serve as a morale boost for both Han and KMT.”

The KMT could be in need of a morale boost. Party support has fallen to historic lows, according to My Formosa polls published in late May and broken down in detail on Taiwan elections blog Frozen Garlic. In May, 56.4% of respondents said that they have ‘bad feelings’ 反感 about the KMT, up from 40% in December 2018, and just 25.2% reporting ‘good feelings’ 好感, down from 34.5% in December 2018.

Taiwanese election laws prohibit publicizing the results of polls run on the recall motion within 10 days of the vote. However, in April, the pro-recall group WeCare Kaohsiung reported collecting 560,000 second stage petitions in favor of recalling Han, which falls slightly below the 574,996 votes needed in favor to pass the motion—suggesting that previously undecided voters may hold the key to the result.

Han’s approach seems to have taken this into consideration. According to Smith, the phrase “green is the color of forgiveness” trended on Facebook in Kaohsiung this week, with some people opting to put a green frame around their profile picture. This appears to be an attempt to suggest that the ‘green camp’ supporters, largely backers of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), ought to extend an olive branch and allow Han to simply complete his term.

Fell adds that the boycott strategy “probably is also designed to reduce the local DPP from mobilizing too openly and actively in support of the recall.”

“It reminds me a little of cricket where a losing team hopes they can be saved by bad weather on the last day, as rain stops play,” he said. “The goal is to dampen voter enthusiasm using a range of strategies.”

Han Kuo-yu stands in the rain to inspect flooding in Kaohsiung. (Credit: Han Kuo-yu Facebook)

Indeed, Saturday’s forecast predicts rain for the usually sunny southern city, which could possibly dampen turnout among voters still on the fence. Additionally, Han’s rather belated apology for neglecting the city by taking three months off to campaign for president, which he offered on May 15, may salve those who are less passionate about recalling Han, especially since the next regular mayoral election is likely just shy of a year and a half away in late 2022.

Alongside this narrative—which has been pushed by calls for Han supporters to reach out to their neighbors and discuss the situation and advocate for the ‘reformed’ mayor to see out his term—Smith said the threat of a possible gang presence around the polling stations may deter some if lining up to vote is seen as a presumption of an anti-Han vote, as will fear of inter-generational conflict within families.

Should the recall pass, though, it seems unlikely that Han would slink away quietly. If his dampening strategy has worked on his supporters the recall would, in their minds, be reduced to a rather unfair incident which he humbly submitted to in the name of democracy.

Although a successful recall would bar him from running for public office at the same level for four years, he would still be able to launch a bid for the KMT party chair position, which is set to be up for grabs in 2021. Han previously ran for chair in 2017, garnering just 5.84% of the votes.

“It is possible,” said Fell when asked if Han may be still be harboring ambitions to run for party chair, “especially as he did talk about reforming the KMT during his presidential campaign and has previously run for party chair.

“That said, I think it may be hard to become KMT chair for Han,” he said. “If he somehow survives the recall, he’d need to be completely focused on Kaohsiung government affairs to have any chance of winning reelection in 2022.”

“The next KMT election will be in 2021 and that means there will not be any elections [in the meantime] that would force Chiang [the current KMT chair] to resign to take responsibility for,” he said.

That the KMT is staunchly backing Han in his attempt to counter the recall comes as no surprise. While Han failed in his presidential bid in 2020, he still enjoys the support of many registered KMT members, partly due to efforts to register Han fans at the massive rallies he held for his presidential campaign and his background as a member of the powerful Fu-hsing 黃復興faction of the KMT—the ‘deep-blue’ faction is composed of military veterans and supports unification with China. He is also a member of the KMT’s Central Standing Committee, having been nominated and accepted the position in late April.

Meanwhile, the KMT is still struggling to establish the reforms promised by the freshly elected Chiang. Then again, Fell said, real reform in an established party is challenging.

“The KMT is always talking about reform but what does it really mean? Usually it is little more than empty slogans. Real reform can be very difficult as parties are resistant to change and dangerous,” Fell said. “It took [President] Tsai Ing-wen two terms as DPP chair before she made the party ready to return to national office.”

Fell recalled the implosion of the New Party, a former major party formed after a split with the KMT in 1993, that has since descended to the fringes of Taiwanese politics.

“When some in the New Party tried to reform the party in 1997, they ended up getting kicked out and the next round of New Party reforms took it in the opposite direction that led to its demise as a serious player,” he said.

The KMT is in a difficult position, then, with Chiang barely three months in as chair and possibly faced with trying to retain control of Kaohsiung by nominating a new mayoral candidate in a by-election should Han be ousted on Saturday. As such, the recall comes at an unfortunate time for the KMT, which desperately needs a positive boost in some form, and for Chiang, who needs to be seen as a strong party leader with a vision for the future in his truncated one-year post if he hopes to retain his position in 2021.

“When we look at how a party learns from defeat, we can consider a number of dimensions, such as issue positions, leadership, organization [and] party alliances,” Fell said. “So far, Chiang is a new leader and he does not seem the type of leader like [former party chair] Wu Den-yih 吳敦義 who basically let the party stagnate.”

“However, so far, what I am observing is a leader that is trying to repackage the party image,” he said. “It’s window dressing. That might change once Chiang consolidates his power.”

Whatever the result of tomorrow’s recall vote, Han is reasonably likely to remain a political force to be reckoned with, either as mayor of Taiwan’s third largest city or a key party official and a potential challenger for the KMT chair in 2021. While the highs of the ‘Han wave”—his 2018 mayoral election, his early presidential run and his wild popularity—have receded, it seems clear that Han Kuo-yu is not ready to throw the towel in.

(Cover photo via Han Kuo-yu Facebook)