Taiwanese voters rejected a bid to oust about one-fifth of their lawmakers, all from the opposition Nationalist Party, in a recall election Saturday, dampening hopes for the ruling party to flip the balance of power in the self-ruled island’s legislature.

An important reason why the recall vote was defeated is a testament to the Taiwanese people’s desire to maintain a thriving democracy and a semblance of checks and balances but on a very practice level,

Voters overwhelmingly rejected a move to oust 24 lawmakers of the main opposition party, Beijing-friendly Kuomintang. Read more at straitstimes.com. Read more at straitstimes.com.

The votes could reshape the island democracy's parliament and the government's approach to its powerful neighbor.

On July 26, Taiwan will set a new record for a developed democracy, holding recall referendums for 24 opposition legislators as well as one opposition mayor. This is nothing to be proud of; the mass recalls of more than a fifth of Taiwan’s legislature are the latest sign of a political crisis that has largely gone unnoticed internationally.

The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday criticized China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) for claiming that Taiwan’s ruling party was guilty of “political manipulation” and that it had lost public support.

A Chinese mainland spokesperson on Sunday said that the failure of a recall vote targeting opposition lawmakers in Taiwan's local legislature shows that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)'s political manipulation runs against the will of the people.