TAIPEI -- A recall election for Hsieh Kuo-liang, mayor of Keelung city in northern Taiwan, failed to pass on Sunday, with the number of votes in agreement with Hsieh's recall falling short of those in disagreement by more than 16,000 votes, according to the local election affairs authority.

According to local election rules, a recall vote will pass if the number of valid votes in agreement exceeds the number of votes in disagreement. The number of votes in agreement must also equal at least a quarter of the total number of eligible voters in the electoral district.

Hsieh, from the Chinese Kuomintang (KMT) party, was elected mayor of Keelung in 2022.

KMT legislator Wang Hung-wei hailed the outcome of the recall vote as the end of a malicious political farce.

The Taipei-based China Times said in an editorial that the entire recall campaign was fundamentally a political offensive initiated by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), with the evident involvement of DPP politicians, their political allies, and DPP-supported media and key opinion leaders online.

If retaliatory recalls become a tool for political destruction in Taiwan, its society will face constant internal strife and never find stability and peace, warned Liu Xing-ren, an associate professor at the Chinese Culture University in Taipei.