The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) are to hold an anti-recall rally in Taipei on Saturday next week, ahead of recall votes set for July 26, opposition party figures said yesterday.
Taipei City Council Speaker Tai Shi-chin (戴錫欽) of the KMT while visiting TPP Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) yesterday extended an invitation for the TPP to join the KMT’s rally, which is to take place in front of Taipei City Hall.
A total of 24 KMT lawmakers and suspended Hsinchu City Mayor Ann Kao (高虹安), formerly of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), are scheduled to face recall votes on July 26.
Photo courtesy of the Taipei Photojournalist Society
Tai, the acting director of the KMT Taipei chapter in place of Huang Lu Chin-ju (黃呂錦茹) — who has been indicted on charges of electoral fraud connected with the opposition’s own recall campaign — thanked Huang for accepting the invitation, saying the TPP’s support was meaningful at a time of adversity.
Huang and the rest of the TPP’s presence would be needed to counter the recall campaigns backed by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which had been motivated by malice, Tai said.
President William Lai’s (賴清德) speech on Tuesday — which urged voters to hammer out “impurities” to forge a “steel-willed determination” to defend Taiwan — was an assault on freedom of speech and thought, Tai added.
The dangwai (黨外, “outside the party”) movement was about giving Taiwanese freedom that the DPP has abandoned as the ruling party in its bid to capture a majority in the legislature, Tai said.
The term dangwai refers to organized dissent formed outside the then-KMT regime before 1986, when the KMT did not allow opposition political parties.
The KMT and DPP have launched plenty of recall campaigns, but they had targeted elected officials for cause, in stark contrast to the indiscriminate campaign being prosecuted currently, he added.
Huang pledged his party’s support for the rally, adding that Taiwan has had enough of a president who, after a year in office, had nothing to show for it except sowing division.
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