This Taiwanese Lawmaker Stole A Bill’s Documents And Ran Away With It To Stop It From Being Passed
Footage from a parliamentary session in Taiwan has gone viral after lawmakers broke into a fight over bills to reform the parliament, leading to at least five lawmakers being injured and taken to the hospital.
Footage from a parliamentary session in Taiwan has gone viral after lawmakers broke into a fight over bills to reform the parliament, leading to at least five lawmakers being injured and taken to the hospital.
The altercation on Friday, May 18 – when lawmakers from all of the country’s three main parties attacked each other – involved bills proposed by opposition parties to give the parliament more power to scrutinize the government.
The proposal from the opposition Kuomintang (KMT) and the smaller Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) come just days before the current vice-president, William Lai, from the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is inaugurated as the new president on Monday, May 20.
Lai won the election in January but the DPP lost its parliamentary majority.
The KMT now has the most seats in the parliament but still not a majority and has been working with the TPP to push through the bill.
One amendment would require the president to make an annual state of the nation address to lawmakers and answer questions on the spot.
The DPP says the KMT and TPP are trying to rush through the bills without a customary consultation process, and the debate erupted into a physical altercation early Friday.
During the 15-hour-long session, Robert Kuo, a DPP lawmaker, snatched the parliament’s Secretary-General’s documents and ran away with them.
Kuo and another DPP lawmaker, Puma Shen, both were injured in the chaos, with Kuo falling while he attempted to climb onto the speaker’s podium and Shen being dragged down by KMT lawmakers while he attempted to climb over them.
Kuo later shared on his Facebook that doctors found he had fractured his tailbone.
Shen and another lawmaker are suspected to have suffered concussions, while another lawmaker experienced high blood pressure and difficulty breathing.
At around 11pm, hundreds of protesters, mostly young people, gathered outside the legislature and held an impromptu demonstration against the opposition, calling on the parliament to properly review the proposed bill.
The bill passed its second reading after midnight and will go onto a final reading on May 21.
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Kassy Cho
Kassy Cho
Kassy Cho
