Opposition Rally Sends Warning to President-Elect Lai Before Inauguration
A day before President-elect Lai Ching-te's inauguration, the opposition Taiwan People's Party has staged a rally highlighting what it says are the shortcomings of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party.
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00:00 "Push for reform!"
00:01 "No right, no wrong!"
00:03 All talk, no action.
00:05 Those are the accusations laid at the feet of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, or DPP,
00:10 at this rally here in Taipei.
00:12 Organized by Kowloon-Je's Taiwan's People Party, or TPP,
00:16 just one day before Vice President Lai Ching-de is set to take over from current President Tsai Ing-wen.
00:23 After eight years of Tsai's presidency,
00:25 speakers at this event say her party is leaving behind an array of empty promises,
00:31 including for constitutional, legislative, media and judicial reforms,
00:36 and are urging Lai to pick up the slack of his predecessor.
00:40 "What I see is that for the past eight years,
00:43 the DPP has been constantly creating enemies within its own people,
00:47 making us a society that is split."
00:50 "Fuck off! Fuck off!"
00:55 Thrusting guavas into the air, the fruit called "bala" in Taiwanese Hokkien
00:59 shares its name with a phrase meaning "to make empty campaign promises,"
01:04 and is being used as a symbol of the TPP's frustration with, as they say,
01:08 a disingenuous DPP administration.
01:11 "I can't believe what the DPP has become."
01:16 With a young and socially active base,
01:19 the TPP is calling on the incoming administration to address the country's economic woes,
01:24 saying Taiwan faces stagnating wages, high inflation, an increasing wealth gap
01:29 and some of the least affordable housing in the world.
01:32 "The housing prices have gone up in the past four years.
01:35 They are lying. They are lying.
01:38 That's why we hate them so much.
01:40 I hate the KMT, but I hate the DPP even more."
01:43 "The gap between the rich and the poor is obvious.
01:44 I can feel it in the people around me, or in the street.
01:47 Some of my colleagues and their children,
01:50 they are not well off, while the rich are very rich."
01:55 "We have to live in poverty for 15 years to afford housing for the young."
01:59 Kerr's party holds eight seats in Taiwan's new legislature,
02:03 and with the opposition Kuomintang, or KMT,
02:05 holding just three more seats than the ruling DPP,
02:08 it's enough to make Kerr's TPP the potential kingmaker in legislative votes.
02:13 "And with Kerr's party already lending more support to the opposition KMT
02:17 than to the ruling DPP, the calls are sounding loud for Lai
02:21 to address the alleged shortcomings of the previous administration
02:25 just one day before his inauguration."
02:27 Howard Zhang and resays in Taipei for Taiwan Plus.
02:31 (air whooshing)