Days before a new president is due to be inaugurated, brawl roils Taiwan’s unicameral parliament

The Legislative Yuan, the single body serving as Taiwan’s legislature, was rocked by a donnybrook between lawmakers of opposing parties Friday.

President-elect Lai Ching-te of the Democratic Progressive Party will be inaugurated Monday. His party has 51 seats in the 113-person Yuan.

At 54 seats, the plurality in the Yuan is held by the Kuomintang, the party of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek who fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing the Chinese Civil War to the Communists. Since it does not have enough seats to govern, it is in a coalition with the Taiwan People’s Party, which holds eight seats.

The coalition parties sought Friday to pass reforms that would allow more parliamentary scrutiny over the rest of the government, including a provision that would criminally penalize officials found to have made false statements to the Yuan.

Blockades were set up by the coalition parties inside and outside the parliament chamber to try and prevent a DPP filibuster. DPP lawmakers attempted to get to the rostrum first but were thwarted, leading to pushing and shoving outside the chamber, according to the online English-language newspaper Taiwan News.

An open forum process was skipped, and when the KMT pushed the raft of reforms to a second reading, DPP lawmakers rushed the rostrum, leading to the second bout of fights and scuffles. One DPP legislator Chung Chia-pin reached it but was dragged away, while another DPP legislator Kuo Kuo-wen tried to climb it but was pulled down, according to Taiwan News.

The DPP claims that the other two parties tried to force through their proposals without a typical consultation process, according to Reuters.

The coalition parties disagree.

“The DPP does not want this to be passed as they have always been used to monopolizing power,” KMT legislator Jessica Chen told Reuters.