Han Kuo-yu: Recalled by 939,000 Voters, Then Elected Speaker of Parliament

The Night of June 6, 2020

At 7:25 PM on June 6, 2020, the Kaohsiung City Election Commission announced the results of the recall vote. Votes in favor of recalling Han Kuo-yu: 939,090. Votes against: 25,051. The ballots were still being counted elsewhere, but the outcome was already beyond doubt.¹

Han Kuo-yu, then 62 years old, became the first directly elected mayor in Taiwan's constitutional history to be recalled from office. His tenure as mayor of Kaohsiung had lasted 528 days — also a record for the shortest mayoral term of any major city.²

His political career appeared to be over. Five months earlier, in the January 2020 presidential election, he had lost to President Tsai Ing-wen by 2.65 million votes — 5.52 million to 8.17 million.³ Within six months, he had gone through something no politician in Taiwan's democratic era had ever experienced at that speed: presidential candidate → defeated → mayor recalled.

But the story did not end there.

On February 1, 2024, the same Han Kuo-yu took the oath of office as Speaker of the 11th Legislative Yuan — the highest position in Taiwan's parliament. The man who had been expelled from office by 939,000 voters four years earlier was now presiding over the national legislature.

Between 2020 and 2024, Han did not run in a single election. He did not win a single new political argument. He did one thing: he waited. He waited for the DPP to lose its legislative majority in the 2024 elections. He waited for the KMT to become the largest party in parliament. He waited for KMT Chairman Eric Chu to place him at the top of the party list. Then he came back.

Between political death and political resurrection, there was nothing but a party-list nomination.

30-Second Overview: Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), born 1957 in Banqiao, Taipei, is a second-generation mainlander whose father fled Henan province for Taiwan in 1949. He attended the ROC Military Academy's short course, earned a bachelor's from Soochow University's English department, and a master's from National Chengchi University's Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies — a pipeline that trained Cold War-era KMT elites. He served as legislator for three terms (1993–2002), then faded from public life. After a stint as general manager of the Taipei Agricultural Products Marketing Corporation (北農), he was nominated as a sacrificial candidate for the 2018 Kaohsiung mayoral race — and won by 150,000 votes in a city the DPP had held for 20 years, riding a populist wave called the "Han wave" (韓流). Four months into his mayoral term he announced a presidential bid, lost by 2.65 million votes in January 2020, and was recalled in June with a 37-to-1 margin. In 2024, placed first on the KMT's party list, he returned to the Legislative Yuan and was elected Speaker on February 1.

From Banqiao to Kaohsiung

Han Kuo-yu grew up as a "second-generation mainlander" (外省第二代) in Banqiao, a district in what is now New Taipei City. His father was from Shangqiu, Henan province, and had crossed the Taiwan Strait with the retreating Nationalist government in 1949. His mother was also of mainlander heritage. He was raised in or near a military dependents' village (眷村), the type of community that shaped a generation of postwar KMT-aligned families.⁴

His education traced a path typical of mainlander elite grooming during the Cold War: military training, humanities degree, cross-strait expertise. He first attended a short-course program at the ROC Military Academy — not the full four-year officer track, but enough to give him a military foundation. He then earned a bachelor's degree in English literature at Soochow University, followed by a master's at National Chengchi University's Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies, Taiwan's most prestigious academic program for studying China. Graduates of the institute typically went into national security, diplomacy, or cross-strait policy.

In 1993, he was elected to the Legislative Yuan. He would win three consecutive terms (the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th sessions, spanning 1993 to 2002), earning a reputation as a political "gunner" — aggressive, combative, willing to go head-to-head with opposition legislators in the bare-knuckle style of 1990s Taiwanese parliamentary politics.

After 2002, Han gradually disappeared from public view. He served as deputy mayor of Zhonghe in Taipei County — a position with no political visibility. From 2013 to 2017, he was general manager of the Taipei Agricultural Products Marketing Corporation (北農), a government-linked company that manages Taipei's wholesale fruit and vegetable market. In political terms, the job was closer to exile than leadership.

He vanished from the public eye. Until 2018.

"Kaohsiung Getting Rich": How a Slogan Changed a City

In 2018, Taiwan held its local elections. The KMT needed a candidate for Kaohsiung — a city the DPP had governed continuously since 1998, making it the party's most reliable stronghold in southern Taiwan. No serious KMT figure wanted the assignment.

Han Kuo-yu was nominated. The party's calculation was simple: he would lose, but his outsized personality could generate media attention and help KMT candidates in other cities. He was a sacrifice bunt.

Then the "Han wave" (韓流) happened.

His campaign language had a density and directness that Taiwanese politics had never seen:

• "One bottle of mineral water, one bowl of braised pork rice" (一瓶礦泉水，一碗滷肉飯) — a declaration that he wasn't backed by corporations and was running on the cheapest things he could find
• "Northbound drifters" (北漂青年) — he gave a name to the phenomenon of young Kaohsiung residents forced to migrate to Taipei for work
• "Goods going out, people coming in, Kaohsiung getting rich" (貨出得去，人進得來，高雄發大財) — three phrases that packaged economic stagnation and hope into a single slogan⁵

These slogans shared a common trait: extremely concrete, extremely populist, extremely emotional. They skipped policy details. They bypassed governance philosophy. They went straight for the rawest nerve — young people leaving, the economy stagnating, hope evaporating. And they were designed to be copied, forwarded, and turned into internet memes.

The Reporter (報導者), Taiwan's leading investigative outlet, classified the "Han wave" after the election as an anti-narrative, anti-elite, grassroots phenomenon.⁶ Taiwan's political discourse at the time was dominated by the Tsai Ing-wen administration's language of reform, internationalism, and progressive values. For some voters — particularly those aged 40 to 49 who had watched Kaohsiung's economy decline — that language was incomprehensible.

Han gave them something they could say.

In November 2018, Han defeated his opponent Chen Chi-mai by 150,000 votes, winning the Kaohsiung mayorship. The DPP's green stronghold turned blue. It was the first time the party had lost Kaohsiung since 1998.

Four Months Later, He Decided to Run for President

The trouble started immediately after.

In late February 2019 — barely four months into his mayoral term — Han began signaling his intention to run for president in 2020. He framed it as a "passive candidacy," claiming he would wait for the KMT to draft him. In practice, his team was organizing rallies across the country. He was already running.

This decision was the beginning of his political collapse.

Kaohsiung voters had elected him to revive the local economy, not to use their city as a presidential launchpad. With Han on the national campaign trail, Kaohsiung's city government ground to a halt — the mayor was rarely at his desk, his cabinet lacked direction, major construction projects stalled, and cross-city negotiations froze. Chen Chi-mai would later win the August 2020 by-election handily, running on the simple promise of a mayor who actually shows up.⁷

Han's performance in the presidential race made things worse. On January 11, 2020:

• Tsai Ing-wen / Lai Ching-te: 8,170,231 votes (57.13%)
• Han Kuo-yu / Chang San-cheng: 5,522,119 votes (38.61%)
• James Soong / Sandra Yu: 1,050,600 votes (4.26%)

Han lost by 2.65 million votes — the third-largest margin in Taiwan's presidential election history.³

The myth of the Han wave, born in November 2018, died thirteen months later in January 2020.

The Recall: A City's Verdict

Two weeks after the presidential election, Kaohsiung residents launched a recall petition. The charge was straightforward: Han had used Kaohsiung as a stepping stone for his presidential ambitions, breaking his promise to the voters who elected him.

Taiwan's recall process has three stages: proposal (1% of eligible voters sign), petition (10% sign), and vote (approval requires more than 25% of eligible voters voting yes, and yes must exceed no). Kaohsiung's recall petition hit the threshold in record time — the process that was expected to take at least four months was completed in two.⁸

On June 6, 2020, Kaohsiung voted. Turnout: 42%. Yes to recall: 939,090. No: 25,051.¹

Put those two numbers side by side. 939,000 versus 25,000. Those who wanted him gone outnumbered those who wanted him to stay by a factor of 37. This was not a close call. This was a city's unequivocal rejection of one man.

Han Kuo-yu became the first directly elected mayor to be recalled in Taiwan's constitutional history.² His 528-day tenure remains the shortest of any mayor of a special municipality.

That night, Han's statement was brief: "I respect the decision of the people of Kaohsiung." No anger, no excuses, no conspiracy theories. It was the opposite of his 2018 "Kaohsiung getting rich" exuberance — but perhaps it was closer to his real personality: a second-generation mainlander with a soldier's discipline and a politician's sense of timing, who knew when to bow.

From Recalled Mayor to Speaker of Parliament: Four Years of Waiting

From June 2020 to November 2023, Han Kuo-yu was almost invisible. He did not run for any office. He held no party position. He did not host a television show. He did not write a book. He appeared occasionally at internal KMT events but led no significant debates.

Those three years were a carefully calibrated wait.

In January 2024, Taiwan held its combined presidential and legislative elections. The result: the DPP won the presidency (Lai Ching-te and Hsiao Bi-khim, 40%) but lost its majority in the Legislative Yuan. The seat distribution:

• KMT: 52 seats (largest party)
• DPP: 51 seats
• Taiwan People's Party (TPP): 8 seats
• Independents: 2 seats

The KMT had become the largest party by a single seat, giving it the constitutional convention to nominate the Speaker.

In late 2023, KMT Chairman Eric Chu announced that Han Kuo-yu would be placed first on the party's at-large list — a position that guaranteed his election to the legislature regardless of district results.⁹ Chu's reasoning: Han's low-profile retreat after his recall demonstrated respect for democratic institutions; his mobilization power remained a KMT asset; and his debate experience and cross-faction negotiation skills made him suitable for the Speaker's chair.

First place on the party list meant "guaranteed elected." When ballots were counted on January 13, 2024, Han was back in the Legislative Yuan.

On February 1, the first day of the new session, the KMT and TPP voted together to elect Han as Speaker. The result: Han 54 votes (52 KMT + 2 TPP), versus 51 for the DPP's nominee.

From recalled mayor to Speaker of Parliament: 3 years and 8 months.

Two Lives of One Politician

Han Kuo-yu's story raises a question that is rarely examined closely: he is the first person in Taiwan's democratic history to experience both a constitutional-level recall and a constitutional-level return.

No precedent exists in Taiwan's four decades of democracy. Chen Shui-bian was prosecuted and never returned. Lien Chan retreated from frontline politics after losing the party chairmanship. James Soong oscillated through multiple runs but never reached the center of power again. Han is the only person to have been removed from office through a formal recall — and then seated in the highest position of the national legislature.

The significance is not about Han personally. It is about what recall actually does.

By design, recall is the people's ultimate sanction against a derelict official. But Han's case reveals that recall only removes a person from one specific office — not from political life itself. Kaohsiung voters recalled him as their mayor, but they could not prevent him from becoming a legislator, a party leader, or anything else. All he had to do was wait for the next opening.

This is a notable feature of Taiwan's constitutional design: individual offices can be subject to recall, but individual politicians cannot be permanently barred. The logic has merit — it prevents political persecution and preserves the people's freedom to choose. But the cost is that failed politicians can always come back.

Han's return in February 2024 made that cost visible. When the man who was kicked out of Kaohsiung City Hall by 939,000 voters walked into the Legislative Yuan chamber to take the oath as Speaker of the national parliament — what did those 939,000 votes mean?

One interpretation: democracy does not hold grudges. A recall is a decision about the present, not a sentence for eternity.

Another interpretation: recall is limited by design. It guarantees the right to remove a mayor, but not the right to never see that person again. Democracy is procedure, not emotion.

The truth is probably somewhere in between. And Han Kuo-yu may be the quietest beneficiary of that procedural gap.

延伸閱讀：

• Cheng Li-wun — The two most important KMT figures of 2025–2026: one is party chair, the other is Speaker of the Legislative Yuan, representing different ecosystems within the party
• Taiwan's Political Landscape and Electoral System — Why does the party-list system allow recalled politicians like Han to return? The answer lies in the electoral rules themselves
• Ko Wen-je — Another figure who went from outsider to mayor to presidential candidate to the center of a political storm; the "rise-and-fall" arc mirrors Han's
• Tsai Ing-wen — The president who defeated Han by 2.65 million votes in 2020 and reshaped Taiwan's international positioning during her eight years in office

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