KMT to start campaign on referendum against end to death penalty

Taipei, March 7 (CNA) The major opposition Kuomintang (KMT) will launch a campaign to hold a referendum against the abolition of death penalty, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said Friday.

Chu said the KMT's decision makers, its think tank and its caucus of national lawmakers reached a consensus to start a referendum campaign aimed at opposing an end to death penalty by organizing meetings around Taiwan to secure support from the public.

Chu did not explicitly explain why the KMT was making the move, but KMT lawmakers have advocated pushing referendums to counter the recall motions being pushed by the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) against them.

KMT Legislator Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強) told local media on Thursday that the KMT has passed many bills that "reflect popular opinion but the DPP has objected every time," and it decided to let the people decide.

It chose the death penalty issue, he said, because it has been one of the most talked-about topics recently.

The KMT has long opposed getting rid of the death penalty, and its stance became more visible after the Legislative Yuan rejected seven nominees selected by President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) to fill vacancies on the Constitutional Court in December 2024.

That refusal to confirm Lai's nominees came after the Constitutional Court handed down a ruling on a death penalty case in September that the KMT denounced as effectively ending capital punishment in Taiwan in all but name.

The KMT accused the Constitutional Court of making a "hypocritical" ruling that limits the use of the death penalty and fails to deliver justice to victims.

KMT's 52 lawmakers and the two independents ideologically aligned with the party all voted against the nominees picked by Lai at the end of August.

They were joined by the eight lawmakers who belong to the smaller opposition Taiwan People's Party that give the opposition a 62-51 majority over the DPP in the 113-seat Legislative Yuan.

Chu described the issue of whether or not to abolish the death penalty as "important" and said the government should allow the public to express their opinions.

Though he did not explicitly link the referendum plan to the DPP's recall motions, he said the KMT was planning to hold events around Taiwan to strengthen the public's understanding of the party's position on capital punishment, leading up to a referendum.

Those events will also be used to highlight the contributions KMT lawmakers have made and focus on other issues such as Taiwan's energy policies, returning tax surpluses to the public, and restoring eight public holidays killed by the DPP, Chu said.

The KMT chairman also questioned the DPP government's economic strategy in the wake of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) pledging earlier this week an additional US$100 billion of investment in the United States.

He said the DPP government should have carefully studied the impact and risks resulting from TSMC's U.S. investment on the domestic industrial sector.

Instead, the government simply used TSMC to extricate itself from its troubles as Taiwan was facing tariff threats from the Trump administration, Chu said.

In a joint news conference with Lai held on Thursday, TSMC Chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said TSMC's investments in the U.S. were intended to meet its clients' needs and rejected criticism that the decision was made under the pressure from the U.S. government.

The latest pledge, if carried out, will increase TSMC's investment in Arizona to US$165 billion.