KMT, TPP Mull Referendums to Go With Taiwan’s Local Elections

Taiwan’s local elections – often referred to as “nine-in-one elections,” due to voting taking place simultaneously for nine different kinds of positions – will soon be upon us, with voting scheduled for the end of November. Alongside the elections, however, a number of referendum issues will also be voted on nationally. 

The referendums are advanced by the Kuomintang (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), the opposition parties currently in control of the legislature. However, unlike past referendums, the KMT and TPP will not campaign with the general public for signatures to get these motions on the ballot. Instead, the KMT and TPP intend to use their combined majority in the legislature to initiate the referendums as a chamber resolution. Consequently, six referendums will take place simultaneously with the local elections. 

One issue that is to be voted on is a familiar one – nuclear energy. Specifically, the KMT calls for the abolishment of policies to enact a nuclear-free homeland. Since the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, Taiwan has been phasing out the use of nuclear power by not extending the lifespan of nuclear reactors. Taiwan’s last operating nuclear reactor thus shut down in May 2025.

Opposing the use of nuclear energy in Taiwan has been a traditional stance of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), the Lai administration has submitted plans for the restart of two reactors. The Lai administration’s shift on nuclear energy may be due to concerns about Taiwan’s energy supply, which is highly reliant on liquefied natural gas, being cut off in the event of an invasion or blockade. There are also concerns internationally about the energy supply that Taiwan needs in order to continue to fuel the AI boom with its semiconductor manufacturing. 

That U-turn may take the wind out of the sails of the KMT’s nuclear energy referendum, even if the Lai administration claims that its eventual goal to phase out nuclear remain unchanged, and nuclear energy will be used alongside renewables. 

Likewise, the KMT has called for a referendum on capital punishment. This is another issue that the KMT has often leveraged in past years, with polls consistently showing high public support for capital punishment in Taiwan.

A Constitutional Court ruling in September 2024 narrowed the scope of the application of capital punishment but did not abolish it. An execution was carried out in January 2025, the first in five years. The KMT has consistently framed the DPP as having enacted a de facto moratorium on capital punishment. But because capital punishment is still on the books in Taiwan, a previous attempt by the KMT to hold a referendum calling for its reinstatement was thrown out in 2025 by the Central Election Commission (CEC). 

Another punitive proposal from the KMT would be to hold a referendum on the implementation of caning as a punishment for serious crimes such as child abuse, sexual assault, and fraud. This is an unusual proposal, seeing as there was no previous demand from society that caning should be implemented as a legal punishment in order to deter crime. 

Critics of the referendum have warned that implementing caning – mostly used as a legal punishment in countries with Sharia law or former British colonies – would fall afoul of human rights conventions that Taiwan has ratified. Perhaps cautious of the perception that the caning referendum is out of left field, KMT chair Cheng Li-wun previously tried to take the caning referendum off the agenda. However, pushback from the party’s legislative caucus led to the KMT continuing to advocate for it. 

A fourth proposal would allow for medical euthanasia to take place in Taiwan. Medical euthanasia has been increasingly discussed in Taiwan in past years, but there is no clear social consensus on the issue. Support for or opposition to medical euthanasia is not an issue that divides cleanly along party lines, making the referendum an important gauge as to what social views on euthanasia are in Taiwan. 

The fifth proposal to be voted on pertains to traffic safety. Specifically, the proposal, as advanced by the TPP, calls for allocating fines from traffic violations to local governments, as earmarked for road safety improvements and transportation subsidies. The proposal may be framed along the lines of traffic safety, increasingly a concern at a time that Taiwan has been criticized as a “pedestrian hell.” But the proposal can perhaps be understood as in line with continued contestation between the pan-Blue and pan-Green camps about the budget, with the pan-Blue controlled legislature seeking to drastically cut funding to the DPP-controlled central government, and pan-Blue mayors criticizing that the central government cut subsidies to local governments in response to the budget reductions. Pan-Green critics have suggested that there is no need for a referendum on this issue when the KMT and TPP could simply pass laws to make such changes. 

The sixth proposal, on absentee voting, was also advanced by the TPP. The proposal would allow absentee voting for national elections – although it would not permit voting from overseas, which would be highly contentious. There have been long fears about the impact on Taiwanese elections if taishang, Taiwanese businessmen residing in China, were allowed to vote from overseas. It is often assumed that they would vote in line with what China wants or that this could open the door to Chinese election interference. 

Instead, under the TPP proposal, absentee balloting would only occur from within Taiwan, where many people do not reside in their voting districts. While voting district is tied to household registration, tax policy often makes landlords unwilling to allow tenants to update their household registration to match rented apartments or homes. 

This proposal has been criticized openly by CEC chair Michael You as potentially leading to chaos. With the KMT and DPP alike having built up party machines around campaigning with the current set-up – in which voters often do not live where they vote – both parties may be hesitant to rethink this. As a newer party, the TPP may benefit, however, from a shaking up of the present election system. 

The KMT is probably hoping to replicate its successes in the 2018 elections, when the party was seen as successfully capitalizing on a national referendum in order to have successes in local elections. At the same time, there was blowback in 2018 over the large number of referendum questions leading to confusion at the polls, and long lines for voting even after polls closed. In order to avoid this happening again, the KMT and TPP have proposed legislation to put multiple referendum questions on one ballot, so as to avoid confusion in paperwork. 

Holding national referendums without a significant period of public campaigning for signatures is relatively untested in Taiwan, even if legal changes passed in the last decade have made it easier to hold referendums than ever. As such, it is to be seen whether the KMT and TPP are able to replicate their past successes in preceding election cycles. For now, the debate over the referendums is a small preview of the elections later this year.