Thousands of people yesterday attended the Taiwan People’s Party’s (TPP) protest in front of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) headquarters in Taipei, calling for legislative, judicial, media and constitutional reforms.
Many protesters held a guava in one hand to show their discontent with the government. Guava — bale (芭樂) in Mandarin — also means a bad check in Taiwan.
At the rally named “519 Grassroots Determination Movement,” some of the protesters chanted: “Defeat the new party-state, launch a new Taiwan.”
Photo: Lo Pei-de, Taipei Times
On the black backdrop of the stage it said: “People make the calls.”
The black fans some protesters held and headbands they wore also carried the slogan.
“A lot of young people voted for [President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文)] in 2016... But after eight years, when we look at what has actually been done, we feel like there has not been much change,” said Samuel Chuang, 35. “The DPP betrayed us. It is not us who betrayed them.”
As president-elect William Lai (賴清德) is about to take office and his party is entering its ninth year as the ruling party, the DPP has become arrogant, the TPP said.
The DPP has already broken its four reforms promise and Lai should not shirk his responsibility, the TPP said.
Shortly before TPP caucus whip Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) and TPP Chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) took the stage, Ko’s former spokeswoman, Vicky Chen (陳智菡), told the crowd that there were about 8,000 participants on site.
However, the police station responsible the site’s security estimated there were fewer than 5,000 people.
When Tsai won the 2016 presidential election, in her victory speech, she told DPP members to be “humble and more humble,” Ko said.
However, what people saw in the past eight years as “arrogant and more arrogant,” he said.
The DPP enjoyed a legislative majority in the past eight years and could pass any bill, yet it failed to make laws to realize its pledges for legislative, judicial, media and constitutional reforms, Ko said.
The DPP-led government established an anti-fraud office, but fraud cases increased two-fold in three years, Ko added.
“Why is fraud so hard to control? It is because the DPP government is the biggest scam syndicate,” Ko said.
People should not be blinded by ideology, he added.
If the party-state reappears in Taiwan, then a revolution would be an obligation, he said, adding that he hoped the nation would not go down that road.
“We are here to remind the DPP to remember its words and restore its humbleness,” Ko said.
Additional reporting by AFP
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