Taiwan: Presidential Recall?

Taiwan's Nationalist Party may file a motion to recall President Chen Shui-bian as the island faces what Vice-President Annette Lu has called "the worst political crisis'' since the U.S. dropped recognition of Taiwan in 1979.

"We will decide whether to file a recall motion at tomorrow's party standing committee meeting,'' Cheng Li-wen, spokeswoman of the opposition Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang, said in a telephone interview today. "We will ask for a special legislative session and file the motion next week if a go-ahead is obtained tomorrow.''

. . . A successful recall will be Taiwan's first against a president, said Liu Bih-rong, a professor of political science at Soochow University in Taipei. While some Nationalist Party lawmakers considered a recall motion against Chen in 2004, the proposal didn't receive enough support within the party for a motion to be filed before parliament.

The Nationalist Party will need the signatures of a quarter of the island's 225 lawmakers to call a special session of Taiwan's parliament, or Legislative Yuan, which went into summer recess May 30. From the time parliament formally receive the recall motion, Chen will have seven days to respond if he wishes. Parliament will then have 15 days to review the motion before voting on it.

If two-thirds of sitting lawmakers vote in favor of the recall motion, the Central Election Commission will have to hold an island-wide referendum, in which a majority will decide whether Chen must step down.