On Sunday ( May 19 ), the day before Taiwan’s electorate president-elect Lai Ching-te, hundreds of opposition supporters gathered in Taipei to protest four more years of Democratic Progressive Party ( DPP ) rule.
Lai will take over as Taiwan is increasingly subject to increasing diplomatic and military forces from its neighbor, China, which claims that the self-ruled area is a part of its territory.
After voters in January removed his group’s majority in the Congressional Yuan, his management will also have to work with a turbulent parliament.
The Kuomintang ( KMT ), Taiwan’s largest opposition group, received one more seat than the DPP, while the upstart Taiwan People’s Party ( TPP ) occupied the position of kingmaker with eight seats. This has historically been viewed as friendlier to China.
Outside the DPP’s office on Sunday, followers of the TPP held up fruits, called “ba le” in Foreign- which is also used to identify poor cheques.
The fruits symbolised the “empty vows” of the DPP, explained TPP head Ko Wen- je.
” The DPP’s empty promises have shown us their arrogance”, he told followers, calling the ruling party “scammers”.
” We are taking to the road now because we feel so helpless with all the empty promises made over the past eight times.”
Samuel Chuang, a 35-year-old rebel, claimed that many younger people backed DPP candidate Tsai Ing-wen in 2016.
” But after eight years, when we see what has actually been done, we feel like there has n’t been much change”, the engineer said.
” DPP betrayed us. Never us, however, betrayed them.