Taiwanese society must look out for the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) attempts to interfere with the recall campaign against Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers said on Thursday.
Campaign groups earlier this week submitted 20 recall vote proposals to the Central Election Commission (CEC) for 19 KMT legislators.
The campaigners include United Microelectronics Corp founder Robert Tsao (曹興誠) and YouTuber Pa Chiung (八炯), both of whom have alleged that KMT politicians were working with the CCP to undermine the DPP in the legislature.
Photo: Lin Yi-chang, Taipei Times
The KMT has submitted a recall petition for one DPP lawmaker.
The Mainland Affairs Council last year compiled ploys and schemes used by the CCP to meddle in elections, including channeling funds to aid favored candidates, giving “vote brokers” and local voters all-expense-paid trips to China and giving financial inducements to news outlets and polling firms that cooperate with its “united front” propaganda.
“The blue and white political camps have a majority in the Legislative Yuan. We have seen that this past year, the CCP made paralyzing the central government from functioning its priority task. If the recall movement can overturn this situation, it would deal a heavy blow to the CCP,” DPP Legislator Lai Jui-lung (賴瑞隆) said on Thursday in response to questions on whether China would meddle in the recall movement.
Lai said that the CCP could pour in more resources and efforts to meddle in the recalls.
“Using democracy to subvert democracy is the least expensive and simplest way to achieve this aim. It would ensure that they and these parties can still control the Legislative Yuan,” he said. “We ask people to take caution and be prudent when facing such situations.”
China has used non-democratic means to interfere with Taiwan’s elections, DPP caucus chief executive Rosalia Wu (吳思瑤) said.
“That is well known to most of us. We have seen the many ploys and schemes the CCP used to meddle with our legislative and other national elections in past years,” she said. “We can liken the current ongoing process, which would culminate in a recall vote later this year, to a large-scale election.”
“We know the CCP has for a long time been supporting a certain political party, so their intention and plans to meddle in the recall would not subside, but would instead escalate further to reach into our society, “ she said.
“People must have awareness and be on guard against these ploys,” she said.
Additional reporting by CNA
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫), spokeswoman Yang Chih-yu (楊智伃) and Legislator Hsieh Lung-chieh (謝龍介) would be summoned by police for questioning for leading an illegal assembly on Thursday evening last week, Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) said today. The three KMT officials led an assembly outside the Taipei City Prosecutors’ Office, a restricted area where public assembly is not allowed, protesting the questioning of several KMT staff and searches of KMT headquarters and offices in a recall petition forgery case. Chu, Yang and Hsieh are all suspected of contravening the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法) by holding
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