Sixty-two seats, no budget
Published 8 October 2026
The 2024 elections gave Taiwan a divided government. The Democratic Progressive Party held the presidency, but no party won a majority of the 113 seats in the Legislative Yuan. The Kuomintang won 52, one more than the Democrats, and teamed up with the People's Party, with 8, to pass bills together. Together that is 60 seats. The European Parliament's research service seat chart adds two "KMT-leaning Independents", which puts the opposition bloc at 62 of 113 and over the 51 Democrats (EPRS seat distribution, March 2024). The two independents come from that source; the Associated Press (AP) reports only the party totals.
The Global Taiwan Institute dates the first move to the moment the new legislature was seated in early 2024, when the Kuomintang and People's Party coalition proposed amendments to the Legislative Yuan Exercise of Official Powers Law to strengthen its powers of inquiry. Under the amendment officials could be compelled to testify and hand over documents and face steep penalties for refusing, which raised concerns about a shift of power from the executive to the legislature per the Institute. A Jurist report on the later court ruling adds that in May 2024 the majority's refusal to negotiate on such bills drew 30,000 protesters to the legislature outside the building. The Guardian and the Diplomat both reported the passage of the bills on May 28 and 29, 2024. The provisions of the bills beyond the amendment above are not described here.
Seven of the Constitutional Court's 15 grand justices, including the chief justice and the deputy, retired on Thursday, October 31, 2024 at the end of eight-year terms. President Lai nominated replacements and the opposition-controlled legislature rejected both lists, on Tuesday, December 24, 2024 and Friday, July 25, 2025, for 14 nominees in all, according to the Taipei Times. In late 2024 the legislature also amended the Constitutional Court Procedure Act to require at least 10 sitting justices for a quorum and at least nine votes to strike down a law. With only eight justices left, that stopped the court from ruling at all.
The 2025 Great Recall was the Democratic Progressive Party's attempt to break the stalemate. On Saturday, July 26, 2025, 24 Kuomintang legislators faced recall votes, a scale the Global Taiwan Institute called "without precedent in Taiwan's recent political history." The rules are demanding: a recall passes only if "yes" votes outnumber "no" votes and the "yes" votes exceed one-quarter of all eligible voters in the district per the Central Election Commission rules. The Taipei Times reported that in only six of the 24 votes did the "yes" count even reach the one-quarter threshold, and in those six the "no" side still outnumbered "yes." In the other 18, "no" beat "yes" and the threshold was not met. Those are commission figures "as of 7pm" that evening, and the paper did not print final counts, so none are printed here either. The Institute adds that all 24 seats were in Kuomintang-leaning districts, so the effort needed either many Kuomintang voters to change sides or a large turnout gap, and that the activists faced what it calls the party's local mobilization networks. The Institute also says one People's Party mayor faced a vote that day. The Taipei Times lists Hsinchu Mayor Ann Kao among those whose votes failed. The two pages do not settle whether her vote was on that day, so the count of 24 legislators is the figure used.
Opinion beforehand did not favor the recalls. The Institute's table from the Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation shows support at 40.1 percent in May 2025, 39.3 percent in June and 39 percent in July, with opposition at 44.2, 48.9 and 44.1 percent. Its reading is that many voters saw the recalls as a partisan tool and that the public "wants President Lai to work with the opposition controlled Legislative Yuan." That last line is the author's interpretation of the result, not a poll finding.
The second wave came on Saturday, August 23, 2025. Seven Kuomintang legislators faced votes and all survived. The Central Election Commission figures reported by the Taipei Times: "no" votes took between 64.48 and 69.28 percent, turnout ranged from 49.24 to 50.34 percent, and none of the "yes" counts passed the quarter-of-electorate threshold. By target, Lo Ming-tsai had 49,990 yes (34.08 percent) against 96,691 no (65.92), Lin Szu-ming 33,813 (30.72) against 76,239 (69.28), Yen Kuan-heng 54,396 (35.51) against 98,809 (64.49), Chiang Chi-chen 33,977 (32.74) against 69,796 (67.26), Yang Chiung-ying 43,677 (34.34) against 83,511 (65.66), Ma Wen-chun 29,914 (33.33) against 59,828 (66.67) and Yu Hao 33,853 (35.52) against 61,443 (64.48). With the 24 from July, all 31 recall attempts failed. The failure fixed the arithmetic for Lai's second year. One of the wire accounts says the seven "held onto their seats, as did 24 members of other parties in a first round," but the first round also targeted Kuomintang members, so this account follows the Taipei Times and the Global Taiwan Institute.
The same day, voters answered a referendum put by the opposition: should the most recently shut nuclear plant, Maanshan, keep running if regulators found it safe? The AP reports 4.3 million votes for and 1.5 million against, nearly three to one, but the "yes" side fell short of the threshold of 25 percent of eligible voters, about 5 million, so it failed. Taiwan shut its last reactor at Maanshan in May 2025 under the Democratic Progressive Party's phase-out policy, after its 40-year license ran out, and nuclear once provided about 20 percent of the island's electricity. Nvidia's Jensen Huang, asked at Taipei airport the day before, called nuclear "an excellent option" while backing solar and wind, citing the power needs of artificial intelligence per the AP. By 2025 the island imported 95% of its energy, and gas made up about 48% of power generation, with Qatar supplying about a third of its liquefied natural gas.
On Friday, December 19, 2025 five of the eight remaining justices struck down the court-procedure amendment. They found it unconstitutional in substance and found procedural defects: a "massive change" to the text on the day of the second reading, and no vote at the third reading. The other three justices, all Democratic Progressive Party appointees according to the Taipei Times, said the ruling was invalid because the court lacked the 10-member threshold. Jurist says they "refused to adjudicate" and issued a "separate unofficial opinion," while the Taipei Times says they dissented, so they are described here as three justices who said the ruling had no valid quorum. Kuomintang and People's Party lawmakers then filed criminal complaints of malfeasance and abuse of power against the five. People's Party leader Huang Kuo-chang argued that even without the amendment the original law still required two-thirds of sitting justices to decide, with a simple majority to strike a law. The Taipei Times account of the complaints is here.