An intense brawl erupted among lawmakers inside Taiwan’s Parliament following a contentious proposal from the main opposition Kuomintang (KMT). The proposal sought to grant Parliament more authority, including the power to hold government officials criminally accountable. This incident took place before the inauguration of Taiwan’s president-elect, Lai Ching-Te, and posed a challenge to his Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which opposed the proposal but did not secure a majority. Violence and aggression have unfortunately become a common means of expressing disagreement within Taiwan’s Parliament, with this incident being just one example. Previous altercations have involved lawmakers shoving, punching, and even throwing pig guts at each other.
“If the DPP continues to block the voting process, I believe this will happen again and again,” KMT lawmaker Jessica Chen said. “We call on President Lai Ching-Te to tell the DPP caucus not to use violence at every turn.”
