Lawmakers Brawl, Stalling Vote on Bills Expanding Checks on President
An attempt by lawmakers from Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party to stall a vote on bills that would expand legislative oversight resulted in a daylong brawl in the legislature.
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00:00 Bolting for the exit, Democratic progressive lawmaker Guo Guowen snatches the documents
00:06 needed to review five legislative reform bills from the hands of the 72-year-old secretary
00:12 of the legislature. It's an attempt to stop an upcoming vote.
00:16 Those bills were at the center of a day-long brawl in the legislature on Friday that left
00:21 six lawmakers needing medical treatment.
00:23 "I would like to apologize to the President for the repeated incidents. I respect his
00:30 feelings about the future." "It's a pity that the Democratic Party's
00:35 legislators not only use hooliganism to attack Congress, but also to attack the president's
00:42 legislators." The opposition, Kuomintang and Taiwan People's
00:47 Party are pushing the bills with proposals that would require the president to offer
00:52 a yearly report to lawmakers and would make contempt of the legislature an offense.
00:57 But the DPP says the laws have been brought for a vote without enough time for review.
01:03 Neither the KMT nor DPP hold a majority in the new legislature, but the KMT has the most
01:08 seats and it sought support from the TPP to pass these reforms.
01:13 Throughout the day, the KMT and TPP attempted to pass the bills through their second readings.
01:19 The televised brawls, which are not uncommon in Taiwan's legislature, gained public attention.
01:31 By nightfall, over a hundred protesters had gathered outside the legislative building,
01:36 many of them students and young people calling for reform.
02:00 Several DPP lawmakers came out to greet the protesters.
02:04 After midnight, KMT Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu called an end to the session.
02:09 The bills will await further review on Tuesday, the day after DPP leader and president-elect
02:14 Lai Ching-de takes office. The scuffle has provided a glimpse of the
02:18 stark divide between lawmakers and the public one Lai must somehow bridge over the next
02:24 four years.
02:28 [BLANK_AUDIO]