KMT to hold assembly on April 26 in protest against President Lai

Taipei, April 19 (CNA) Kuomintang (KMT) Chair Eric Chu (朱立倫) on Friday urged the public to "protect democracy" and demonstrate their anger with President Lai Ching‑te (賴清德) and the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) via an assembly on April 26, as prosecutors' probe into Taiwan's main opposition party continues.

"It is rare in the free world to see a government that calls itself democratic launch such a reckless political purge against its opposition," said Chu outside the Taipei District Prosecutors Office.

"First, they targeted the TPP (opposition Taiwan People's Party). Now, they are coming after the KMT. First, the youth, now ordinary citizens. We will not allow the DPP to turn the judiciary into a weapon, dragging the entire society into fear and silence."

Speaking on the second night of the protest outside the prosecutors' office, Chu said it was everyone's responsibility to gather on Ketagalan Boulevard in front of the Presidential Office Building on April 26 and let Lai hear the public's fury and disappointment over his alleged abuse of judicial power.

"All of us standing here and now share the same crime - opposing President Lai Ching‑te. Taiwan faces a crossroads for its democracy, and we must step up and combat dictatorship. Otherwise, Taiwan has no future," he said.

Chu's remarks came after prosecutors raided the party's Taipei office on Thursday, detaining four staffers -- including Taipei chapter chair Huang Lu Chin‑ju (黃呂錦茹) -- for questioning over allegations that petitions to initiate an election to recall DPP lawmakers contained fake signatures.

Prosecutors later sought court approval to detain the KMT staffers on suspicion of forgery.

At around 5 a.m. Saturday, the court ordered that the 75‑year‑old Huang Lu and Tseng Fan‑chuan (曾繁川) be released without bail. However, the other two staffers, Chu Wen‑ching (初文卿) and Yao Fu‑wen (姚富文), were detained and held incommunicado.

The DPP has not responded to KMT's planned assembly on April 26, but in a Thursday statement, it said local election commissions have found nearly 20,000 problematic petitions for recalls of its lawmakers, including 1,923 with signatures of dead people, accusing the KMT of being the biggest threat to democracy in Taiwan.

It also condemned the KMT's protest outside the prosecutors' office as "illegal."

"It proves that the Kuomintang is the biggest culprit who undermines Taiwan's social stability and hurts the democratic constitutional system," DPP spokesperson Justin Wu (吳崢) said in the statement.

Chu, who embraced Huang Lu after the court hearing early Saturday, said the raids by prosecutors and the Investigation Bureau signaled the DPP's attempt to eliminate the one force blocking the Lai administration's realization of a party‑state.

He alleged a double standard, citing that there were nearly 100 allegedly fake signatures collected by a DPP-backed campaign to initiate a recall vote against then‑Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo‑yu (韓國瑜) from the KMT in 2020, noting that prosecutors at the time did not even attempt to question those involved, claiming that they could not proceed with the case.

"[The judicial system] obviously targets the KMT," he argued, saying the Lai administration is "only one step away from declaring martial law."