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[CC may contain inaccuracies] Some of the scenes out of parliament are just extraordinary.
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It's never a dull moment when it comes to Taiwan politics.
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No, obviously not. What we saw last night was the largest
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public protests in years in Taiwan, as these protesters, as you say, trying to
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stop lawmakers from passing this new bill.
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And the reason they're so against this new bill is that it really is a quite
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remarkable expansion of the legislature's powers.
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The bill would give lawmakers the ability to call the president in front
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of them whenever they request. The president would also have to present
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an annual state of the nation address similar to the United States.
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It would also expand lawmakers abilities to investigate the government.
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It would expand their powers to request documents from the government.
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It would also implement fines for any government officials who are speaking to
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the legislature and are found to have told untruths to lawmakers that could
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result potentially in prison sentences of up to one year.
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So on the executive branch, this has really been seen as a huge power grab by
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the legislature and an attempt really by the legislature, which is controlled by
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the more China friendly Kuomintang here as an attempt to really curtail a new
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president like the just shortly after he took power on Monday.
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So how much power do the people really have?
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He said. If they're against this proposed
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legislation, can they really block it through protests?
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Well, that's what we're going to see over the coming days.
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So last night the legislation passed its second reading.
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It now goes into its third reading, after which it will become law on
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Friday. So I think what we're going to see is
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we're going to see a repeat of these protests Friday evening, potentially
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even bigger. We saw about 10,000 people out on the
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streets last night, according to our own estimations and local media.
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And so that should repeat itself on Friday when this bill comes to passing
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its final hurdle before becoming law. And this really does hearken back to ten
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years ago in Taiwan, when the government at the time tried to pass a trade deal
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with China and people took to the streets in huge numbers to protest
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against this bill and actually managed to storm the legislature and occupy it
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for several weeks and eventually forcing the government to shelve the bill.
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So that was ten years ago. That was that was called the Sunflower
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Movement. That was the pivotal moment in recent
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Taiwanese history. And really as a as an example for these
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protesters. And so you go out there and you spend
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time with the protesters on the streets. They do refer back to that.
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And they are saying, you know, some people are going to try to get into the
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legislature, try and stop this bill, if at all possible.
