Fallen Star of Taiwan’s China-Friendly KMT Faces Historic Recall

(Bloomberg) -- Voters in the southern Taiwanese port city of Kaohsiung decide whether to remove their mayor from office in a recall vote Saturday that could bring to an end the meteoric political rise and fall of a man dubbed Taiwan's Donald Trump.

Kaohsiung City Mayor Han Kuo-yu faces a vote Saturday to recall him after 18 months in the position. Civil groups initiated the campaign to oust him after he accepted the opposition Kuomintang's nomination to run in the presidential election just months after being elected mayor in November 2018, breaking a previous promise he would see out his four-year term.

Han suffered a landslide defeat to President Tsai Ing-wen in January's presidential election.

Han's removal would likely end a political career that in 18 months saw him emerge from relative anonymity to compete for Taiwan's highest office before having to fight for his position as mayor. For the recall to succeed, a simple majority needs to back his ouster, with more than a quarter of the city's 2.3 million eligible voters turning out to polling stations. It would make him Taiwan's first city mayor to be recalled.

The chairman of the opposition KMT, Chiang Chi-chen, urged voters to keep Han in his job in a video Friday. “If the vote to recall Han is successful, not only is it a sign of distrust in him, it's a huge blow to the efforts of the Kaohsiung city government over the past one and a half years.”

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Early last year, Han was riding high. His unlikely victory in the race for mayor of Kaohsiung -- Taiwan's third-largest city -- made him a top contender for the 2020 presidential election. A straight-talking, no-nonsense political outsider who put the economic needs of Kaohsiung's blue-collar workers and farmers first, he pledged to boost the city's economy by attracting more Chinese tourists and selling more agricultural produce across the strait.

His more ambitious plans included persuading Walt Disney Co. to build a theme park and Formula One to host a grand prix race in the city.

His grandiose goals, unrefined, populist rhetoric and his background in business rather than politics led to comparisons with President Trump. Han's willingness to accede to Beijing's conditions for direct talks, including accepting the notion that Taiwan is part of China, set him apart from President Tsai, who views the island as a sovereign state.

Han's fortunes began to change after a controversial closed-door meeting with China's powerful Liaison Office in Hong Kong, the first time an elected official had stepped foot in the office. His slide in popularity was exacerbated by his initial response to Hong Kong's pro-democracy protests last June when he claimed -- to widespread incredulity in Taiwan -- to not know much about them.

Tsai, meanwhile, made vocal support for Hong Kong's protesters a key pillar of her ultimately successful re-election campaign.