The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) have disregarded procedural justice and disguised their attempt at a power grab as legislative reforms, which has sparked a public outcry.
More than 100,000 people, without being mobilized by any political parties or being led by a specific person, gathered outside the Legislative Yuan on Friday last week in opposition to the controversial reform bills.
The protest has been called the Qingniao movement (bluebird movement, 青鳥運動), named after Qingdao E Road (青島東路) where the protest took place. “Qing” means blue and “dao” contains an element meaning “bird” in Chinese. It is the biggest social movement in Taiwan since the Sunflower movement.
Protestors in the Qingniao movement behaved in a peaceful and rational manner.
The movement was organized by the public and encouraged people from all walks of life to speak up for democracy, with young people making up the biggest percentage of the crowd.
So far, KMT and TPP lawmakers have been determined to ignore the protest and disregard transparency in legislative processes to pass the so-called reform bills, which are actually unconstitutional, to expand legislative power.
Even though it does seem as if protesters’ demands are being ignored, there are still options for the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
Votes are the key to solving these problems.
Therefore, those who participated in the Qingniao movement should not be pessimistic.
Taiwan’s next local elections are to be held in one-and-a-half years, which would allow eligible voters to teach these democracy vandals a lesson.
Taiwanese should first use their voting rights to prevent TPP Legislator Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) from ever becoming mayor or county commissioner and remove KMT lawmakers.
Liu Shih-ming is an adjunct associate professor in the Graduate School of Taiwanese Culture at the National Taipei University of Education.
Translated by Hsieh Yi-ching
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