KMT vows to seek Lai recall after May 20 at large Taipei rally

Taipei, April 26 (CNA) The main opposition party, the Kuomintang (KMT), said Saturday that it will push for a motion in the Legislature to recall President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) after May 20, the first anniversary of Lai's inauguration, during a rally in Taipei that the KMT claimed attracted 250,000 supporters.

Since taking office last year, Lai has focused not on good governance but on eliminating opposition parties, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said at a rally organized by the KMT in Taipei on Saturday afternoon.

"This dictator [referring to Lai] is carrying out a Cultural Revolution in Taiwan -- a green [the color that denotes the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, DPP] Cultural Revolution aimed at eliminating all dissent," he said.

Chu said Lai is "more communist than the communists, more fascist than the fascists," adding that if Lai refuses to "repent," the people of Taiwan will launch a nationwide recall of him starting from May 20.

"How about letting the Legislature propose a recall motion [against Lai] immediately after May 20?" said Chu, whose KMT, together with the smaller opposition Taiwan People's Party (TPP), holds a majority in the Legislative Yuan.

While acknowledging that the recall motion against Lai can only be passed with a two-thirds majority in the Legislature -- as the combined seats of the KMT and TPP lawmakers is not enough to pass such a motion -- Chu said the KMT will seek to mobilize people across Taiwan to "use their collective strength to bring Lai down."

According to the Presidential and Vice Presidential Election and Recall Act, a recall motion against the president and vice president must be proposed by one-fourth of all legislators and approved by two-thirds of the legislature before it can be put to a popular vote.

In the 113-seat Legislature, opposition parties hold 62 seats - including 52 from the Kuomintang (KMT), 8 from the Taiwan People's Party (TPP), and 2 independents. This means the opposition camp is still 14 votes short of being able to pass a recall motion.

Chu was speaking at a rally organized by the KMT on Ketagalan Boulevard in front of the Presidential Office Building, titled "Fight Green Communism, Resist Dictatorship."

The two-hour rally was attended by both KMT and TPP supporters, with organizers announcing that the total number of participants exceeded 250,000 by the end of the event.

Other KMT and TPP lawmakers and leaders, including Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) of the KMT and TPP Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌), also took to the stage to deliver remarks to the crowd standing in the rain, criticizing the DPP led by Lai.

"Launching a recall campaign against a legislator right after they are elected -- what kind of ruling party does that? This is not how democracy is supposed to work," Han said, referring to the ongoing recall campaigns targeting KMT lawmakers across Taiwan.

"Democracy must have checks and balances provided by opposition parties," Han said, adding that while Lai and the DPP often tout Taiwan's democracy to foreign countries, they are "murdering democracy" at home.

In the same vein, Huang said Lai had launched the recall campaigns targeting KMT lawmakers as part of his push for "great dictatorship," saying, "We will never allow the DPP government or Lai Ching-te to lead Taiwan back down the old path of authoritarian rule."

Among those chanting slogans such as "Lai Ching-te step down" and "safeguard Taiwan" from the crowd was Sunny Ma, a KMT member and retired public-school teacher, who said the incumbent government is "moving closer and closer to dictatorship," leading the country to "drift farther away from democracy and freedom."

The 60-year-old also described the recall campaigns targeting KMT lawmakers as an "unreasonable action," explaining that it was like "fighting magic with magic" for opposition party supporters to also carry out recall campaigns targeting DPP lawmakers.

Echoing Ma, Ryan Kuo, a 35-year-old TPP supporter, said that if the recall campaigns targeting KMT lawmakers are judged solely based on political affiliation, "it would mean that people are not looking at what lawmakers have actually done," but are simply recalling them based on the party they belong to.

In response to the rally before it began, Lai delivered remarks to reporters ahead of a meeting with business representatives in Keelung.

The rally served as a testament to Taiwan being a democratic country with freedoms of assembly, association, and speech and where there is neither martial law nor a dictatorship, Lai said.

If the opposition parties truly want to "resist dictatorship," Lai said, in reference to the rally's slogan, "they should go to the right places and target the right people."

They should go to Tiananmen in Beijing, Lai continued.

"At the very least, when meeting China's authoritarian regime (in Beijing), they should stop bowing down and instead dare to … convey the hopes of the Taiwanese people for a life of democracy, freedom, and human rights and demand the regime renounce the use of force against Taiwan, in pursuit of cross-strait peace. This is what resisting dictatorship truly means."

The president said that China seeks to annex Taiwan, and all political parties, both the ruling and opposition camps, are targets of Chinese infiltration.

There is not just "Green Communism," but also the "Blue Communism" and "White Communism," said Lai, referring to the colors that denote the DPP, KMT, and the TPP respectively.

He stressed that "regardless of party affiliation or political color, all of Taiwan should unite to resist the Chinese Communist Party, safeguard Taiwan, and defend the Republic of China."

In response to the KMT's criticism of the DPP government over the prosecutors pursuing individuals involved in alleged fraudulent signature collection for recall campaigns against DPP lawmakers, Lai said that everyone, regardless of political affiliation, should support the prosecutors in holding those who break the law accountable.