More than 250,000 people on Saturday rallied in a rainy Taipei against the “dictatorship” of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) authorities in Taiwan.
Locals were joined by Chinese Kuomintang (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu and former Chairman Ma Ying-jeou, Taiwan People’s Party Chairman Huang Kuo-chang, the head of Taiwan’s legislative body Han Kuo-yu and other representatives of the legislative body, as well as local political figures from all over the island.
The rally took place against the backdrop of the so-called mass recall launched by the DPP earlier this year, which targeted legislative representatives affiliated with the KMT, as searches were conducted against KMT offices across Taiwan.
Since taking office in May last year, Taiwan leader Lai Ching-te has been dividing and destroying Taiwan, turning a once united Taiwan into a society marked by confrontation, Chu said at the rally, adding that Lai is seeking to eliminate all those who oppose him in pursuit of personal interests and one-party dominance.
Huang echoed his words, stressing that the so-called mass recall aims to advance Lai’s push toward authoritarian rule, and it is an attempt to make Taiwan a place where “those who follow Lai thrive, and those who oppose him perish,” which is a tragedy for the island.
On the DPP authorities’ yielding to U.S. trade coercion following the U.S. proposal of so-called reciprocal tariffs, Ma denounced the DPP authorities’ incompetence and authoritarianism, warning that a leader who is incompetent, unmerited and authoritarian is very likely to trigger confrontations across the Taiwan Straits in the future.
Lu Shiow-yen, mayor of Taichung, where manufacturing is the pillar industry, urged Lai at the rally to listen to the voices of the people and the industries and focus on revitalizing the economy rather than engaging in political maneuvering.
The rally concluded with the crowd’s angry chants of “Lai Ching-te, step down” in unison.
A third party called the TPP has recently become electorally viable with elected officials. The TPP doesn’t fall into old Taiwanese electoral paradigms (waishengren vs benshengren, status quo vs separatism) and is a vaguely progressive party. But the key point about the party is that it attracts young people, including people who are too young to vote but who will eventually age up towards voting age. The DPP, the comprador separatist party that has roots with Japanese collaborators during WWII, doesn’t like this because the DPP was supposed to be the new hip party compared with the KMT that only boomers like.
Here are the results of the 2024 Taiwanese presidential election.. One additional thing to note is that the KMT and TPP almost ran a joint ticket (with Hou Yu-ih as President and Ko Wen-je as Vice President I believe) before the blue-white coalition fell through, meaning the DPP only won because votes were split between the KMT and TPP. Still, the DPP ate shit in the 2024 legislative elections. The KMT has one more seat than the DPP, but it doesn’t have a majority. The TPP is essentially the tie-breaker, and they’re siding with the KMT.
There’s the wide perception that the TPP is completely carried by Ko Wen-je (opponents call the TPP a cult of personality surrounding Ko), which is why the DPP is trying to bust him on corruption charges. This is the context of this protest and previous protests (there was another one earlier that had at least 150000 people but you didn’t hear a word of this from Western MSM because they’re running defense for the DPP). The DPP is waging lawfare against their political opponents the TPP and the KMT. That previous protest was over the DPP trying to jail Ko in their attempts to sink the TPP while this protest is over the DPP trying to impeach various KMT politicians.