A massive brawl took place at Taiwan’s parliament on Friday as lawmakers clashed over bills that could harm the democracy of the island nation.
Chaotic visuals showed Taiwanese lawmakers tackling and dousing each other with water as President Lai Ching-te’s party tried to prevent the passing of bills they considered a threat to the democratic system.
Lai’s Democratic Progressive Party lawmakers had occupied the podium of the main chamber of the parliament since Thursday night and locked themselves inside by piling up chairs to barricade entrances, news agency AFP reported.
The DPP parliamentarians were trying to prevent three legal amendments proposed by the opposition bloc. They alleged these amendments would make it more difficult for voters to oust elected officials whom they see as unfit.
DPP lawmakers criticised the opposition Kuomintang (KMT) party and its ally Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) for attempting to pass the bills with their majority and shouted “Parliamentary dictatorship” slogans at them.
The ruling party’s statement read: “If the KMT forcefully passes the amendments… Taiwan’s democratic self-checking and self-repairing mechanism will be gone, and it will also cause significant and irreversible damage to Taiwan’s civil society and democratic system.”
“At a time when Taiwan’s democracy is being violated and damaged, we must stand up and take action,” it added.
Visuals from the parliament showed KMT’s Hsu Chiao-hsin attempting to break open the lock to force out DPP members from the Legislature in Taeipei on Friday. According to media reports, lawmaker Lin Chu-Yin sustained injuries in her arm.
Horrifying scenes in Taiwan’s legislature today, as rogue KMT legislators violently attacked DPP legislators, in order to push through 3 rogue bills—they pushed Huang Jie to the floor, threw Ariel Chang to the wall, kicked and beat Chen Pei-yu, and Lin Chu-Yin injured her arm. pic.twitter.com/elK4X3aFZ8
— Roy Ngerng 鄞義林 Khûn Gī-lîm (@royngerng) December 20, 2024
The disputed bills included a planned revision to the Public Officials Election and Recall Act, which was pressed ahead by the KMT and its ally TPP to increase the threshold for removing elected officials, the report said.
While the KMT stated it would prevent the power of recalls from “being abused”, DPP lawmakers feared the move would take away voters’ rights to remove unfit officials.
Thousands of people gathered outside the parliament on Friday to protest the bills, shouting “return the evil amendments”, and “Defend Taiwan”.
“I am here to protest the opposition parties for trying to confiscate the people’s rights to recall,” graduate student David Chen told AFP.
Earlier this year in May, similar brawls took place among lawmakers after reform bills expanding parliament’s powers were pushed by the opposition. MPs were seen punching, kicking, and pushing each other during a heated debate over a set of reforms. This had also led to massive street demonstrations.
In October, the most controversial sections of the law were struck out by the Taiwan’s Constitutional Court, delivering a partial victory to the DPP which was against the reforms.
