Days before President-elect Lai Ching-toku takes office without a legislative majority, Taiwanese lawmakers were shoved, tackled and punched inside parliament on Friday in a heated debate over parliamentary reform. .
Even before voting began, some lawmakers shouted and shoved each other outside the chamber, before moving into the chamber.
In chaotic scenes, lawmakers crowded around the speaker’s chair, some jumping over tables and dragging colleagues into the chamber. Calm quickly returned, but there were more scuffles in the afternoon.
Rai, who will you be? was launched On Monday, he won the January election, but his Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lost its majority in parliament.
The main opposition party, the Kuomintang Party (KMT), has more seats than the Democratic Progressive Party, but it is not enough to form a majority on its own, so it works with the smaller Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) to exchange ideas with each other. We are promoting.
Opposition parties want to strengthen parliament’s oversight powers over the government, including a controversial proposal to criminalize officials deemed to have made false statements in parliament.
The Democratic Progressive Party claims that the KMT and TPP are trying to unfairly push through the proposal without going through the customary consultation process, in what the Democratic Party calls an “unconstitutional abuse of power.”
“Why are we against it? We want to be able to have a debate, we don’t want there to be only one voice in the country,” said a member of the Democratic Progressive Party, which represents Chiayi City in the south. Wang Meihui, a lawmaker, told Reuters.
Lawmakers from all three parties took part in the altercation, exchanging blame over who was to blame.
Kuomintang Jessica Chen, a native of the Taiwanese-controlled Kinmen Islands bordering China’s coast, said the reforms were meant to strengthen legislative oversight of the executive branch.
“The Democratic Party does not want this bill to pass because it has been accustomed to monopolizing power,” she told Reuters, wearing a military helmet.
Taiwan is a violent democracy, with fights sometimes breaking out in parliament. In 2020, Nationalist Party members pig innards The debate over the relaxation of imports of U.S. pork came to the floor.
The clash raises the possibility of further turmoil and parliamentary conflict after Mr. Rai’s new government takes office.
Wang of the Democratic Progressive Party said, “I’m worried.”
