Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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Photo Credit: Economic Democracy Union/Instagram
TEN THOUSAND DEMONSTRATORS have gathered outside of the legislature, ahead of a planned attempt by the KMT to raise barriers for recalls by changing the Recall Act. With the KMT occupying the legislative podium ahead of a scheduled vote at 8 AM tomorrow, in a dramatic series of events, the DPP broke into the legislature through a window at 10 PM. While protesters continue to stay overnight, in spite of cold and rain, the DPP legislators continue to stay in the legislature and have stated that they are fortifying the legislature against possible incursions by the KMT.
The protests took place on the second of three days of planned rallies declared by the Bluebird Movement. The protests were declared after a scheduled meeting to conduct a preliminary review of the bill on Monday. DPP legislators were blocked from entering the meeting room, in spite of the fact that they arrived at 6 AM, anticipating that the KMT might seek to prevent them from entering the premises. The first day of protests was outside of the KMT party headquarters and drew 6,000.
Livestream of the protest
Without the DPP legislators, then, the KMT simply voted without them present to force the bill through the preliminary review stage. The meeting began at 9 AM and ended at 9:03 AM, without any DPP legislators present for a vote they otherwise should have been part of, as a result.
The KMT currently aims to raise barriers to holding recall votes. This would be through instituting ID checks for collecting signatures for petitions to organize a recall vote. This would also occur by raising the benchmark needed for a recall to be successful, so the number of votes needs to be higher than the number of votes that the official was originally elected by.
Such requirements would make it difficult for any recall to ever take place successfully, since recall votes rarely if ever reach the same number of participating voters as the original vote. Consequently, the KMT’s actions have been criticized as aiming to take away the constitutional right of referendum from voters.
The institution of ID checks for recall petitions has also raised concerns from privacy advocates, seeing as sometimes organized crime elements have been found to be involved in collecting signatures for elections in past years. This raises the possibility of private information on one’s national ID ending up used for fraud.
It appears that the KMT’s actions have triggered a nerve, in seeking to exclude the DPP entirely from voting on the Recall Act. Namely, after the incident on Monday, KMT caucus convenor Fu Kun-chi stated that the KMT and TPP would force through changes to the Recall Act by force. To do this, the KMT occupied the legislative podium ahead of the meeting scheduled for tomorrow at 8 AM, before the surprise charge into the legislature by the DPP.
It has been rare for an overnight protest action to number 10,000 participants in the past decade since the Sunflower Movement. To this extent, the current demonstrations prove an odd echo of the Sunflower Movement, in that 10,000 is a comparable number to the first night of the Sunflower Movement.
Unlike the Sunflower Movement, this proves a different scenario in which protesters outside act in support not of student occupiers, but DPP legislators inside of the legislature who act to hold the line against the KMT. Yet one notes that these DPP legislators include a number of former Sunflower Movement activists, perhaps reflecting the shift between a decade prior and the present by which many former activists went into politics.
This was also the case with the Bluebird Movement protests earlier this year. Such dynamics have persisted into the “Winter Session” of this year’s Bluebird Movement demonstrations, then.
Arguments between DPP legislators, staffers, and Chen Yu-chen of the KMT
After the abatement of protests earlier this year against the KMT’s efforts to expand legislative powers, the Bluebird Movement had next sought to demonstrate against the KMT’s attempt to freeze the Constitutional Court. But that it would be the issue of the KMT’s efforts to raise barriers to the Recall Act that led to large-scale protests is arguably because there were any number of causes that could have triggered public anger against the KMT. Ten years ago during the Sunflower Movement, it was also the case that the Cross-Strait Services Trade Agreement was one of any number of causes that could have triggered protests.
Likewise, a key factor in triggering mobilization was anger over the KMT’s resorting to physical violence in the legislature. The initial wave of Bluebird Movement protests had as its most direct trigger public anger over violence used against DPP legislator Puma Shen during a tussling match in the legislature. This time around, it would be the KMT physically blocking DPP legislators from attending the review meeting they were supposed to be present at.
This time around, DPP legislator Chen Ying was sent to the hospital after clashing with KMT legislator Chen Yu-chen, who was trapped outside the legislature afterward. DPP legislators sought to dissuade Chen from climbing over broken glass windows to re-enter the legislature afterward. Chen shouted at the DPP in the course of fighting, “If you want a revolution, you’ll need to sacrifice!” Another KMT legislator suggested he would burn down the legislature if the DPP entered.
KMT caucus convenor Fu Kun-chi later walked around the legislature with the media, inspecting the damage, claiming that the rule of law in Taiwan was finished after eight years of DPP rule. Encountering prominent Indigenous activist and former Sunflower Movement activist Savungaz Valincinan, who began shouting slogans at him while making no move toward him otherwise, Fu alleged to journalists that participants in the demonstration were paid off by the DPP to the tune of 100,000 NT a month, receiving expensive meals and free trips to expos. This proves ironic, with Fu having previously served many years in jail over insider trading and bribes to the media during his time as Hualien county magistrate.
Fu called on the media to photograph Savungaz so that she could be identified by police and later face legal charges. Again asserting that protesters were paid off, Fu suggested that the KMT represented the genuine popular will of the people in Taiwan. Fu also denigrated the DPP as holed up in a cowardly fashion in the legislature.
Otherwise, the KMT and TPP have denounced the DPP as “stealing” democracy from Taiwan and enacting martial law in Taiwan. This claim about martial law draws on a questionable social media post made by the DPP legislative caucus after President Yoon Suk-yeol’s abortive declaration of martial law in South Korea, suggesting that similar could take place in Taiwan as a result of the KMT’s actions in the legislature. As this seemed to suggest that the DPP could declare martial law against the KMT, the post was later deleted and replaced with a post emphasizing that the KMT was the political party in Taiwan that had declared martial law during the authoritarian period, maintaining what was once the longest martial law period in the world.
Still, it is the DPP’s actions that draw parallel to what took place in South Korea, with South Korean legislators breaking into the parliament in order to vote down Yoon’s martial law declaration. This has been the case with the DPP barred from the legislature by the KMT and breaking to vote, while the KMT sought to prevent them from participating in a scheduled vote. The DPP has emphasized that it would have hoped for a normal vote from the KMT and that the KMT has continued to refuse to attend meetings about the national budget and other issues.
Social media post by the DPP of barricades it has set up in the legislature, highlighting the parallel with the Sunflower Movement through a reference to movement anthem “Island’s Sunrise”
According to the DPP, the KMT appears to have withdrawn and even if the KMT has stated they will try to break into the legislature again around 3 or 4 AM, this may be smokescreen. The DPP has called on protesters to stay outside and support them, to register public dissatisfaction with the KMT, or to come in the morning.
As Fu Kun-chi recently returned from one of his frequent trips to China, the DPP has framed Fu as prone to taking strong actions intended to erode away at Taiwan’s democratic system each time he returns from China.
It is to be seen what occurs in the morning. The DPP has stated that it is prepared for a long-term occupation, in staying in the legislature. It has arranged the interior of the legislature to set up barriers reminiscent of those used during the Sunflower Movement, referencing the movement in their appeals to the general public.