Staff writer, with CNA
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) has lent support for the Taiwan People’s Party’s (TPP) plan to take to the streets of Taipei next Saturday to “demand judicial justice from the government.”
TPP Acting Chairman and Legislator Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) announced on Friday that the party would mobilize its rank-and-file members nationwide for a rally on Saturday at Liberty Square (自由廣場) to show their solidarity with the party’s embattled former chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲).
Huang accused the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) of interfering with judicial and prosecutorial matters, and urged the public to “stand up against [the DPP’s] authoritarianism” through protests.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu speaks at the KMT headquarters in Taipei on Dec. 25 last year.
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
The announcement came hours after the Taipei District Court ordered Ko, who has been embroiled in corruption allegations, to be detained again during his third bail hearing on Thursday.
Ko, 65, was indicted on Dec. 26 last year on charges of bribery and other forms of corruption in connection with real estate dealings during his second term as Taipei mayor from 2018 to 2022.
He was also charged with embezzling political donations to the TPP during the presidential election last year.
The TPP has denounced the case as “political persecution.”
The two-time former mayor who ran for president last year resigned on Wednesday from the party he founded in 2019, passing the baton to Huang.
Via a social media post on Friday, Chu said he would “give his full support” to those expressing their discontent with the DPP on Saturday.
However, he did not say whether his party would participate in the TPP protest.
Chu also blamed the DPP for the Constitutional Court’s recent decisions to put restrictions on the use of the death penalty and to revoke a bulk of the KMT-endorsed measures that would have granted the legislature broader investigative powers.
On the other hand, New Power Party Chairwoman Claire Wang (王婉諭), criticized Huang’s plans as “undermining the judiciary.”
Wang, a legislator from 2020 to last year, said she opposed any political party protesting under the banner of “political persecution” and “treating the judicial system as an enemy,” adding that such actions would jeopardize democratic institutions.
