The leaders of Taiwan’s two main opposition parties will hold an emergency summit on Tuesday to confront what they call a deepening political crackdown by the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), amid an escalating battle over lawmaker recall campaigns and growing judicial scrutiny of opposition activists.
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Eric Chu Li-luan, chairman of the main opposition Kuomintang (KMT), said he and Huang Kuo-chang, head of the smaller Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), would meet to coordinate responses on defending judicial fairness, safeguarding democracy, and addressing the economic impact of US import tariffs imposed by the Trump administration.
Lawmakers from the KMT, once Taiwan’s dominant party and seen as more mainland-friendly, are facing a wave of recall efforts from voters in a drive backed by DPP supporters.
KMT-aligned civil groups have in turn launched recall drives against several DPP legislators, but at least a dozen pro-KMT organisers have come under investigation or been detained on allegations of forging petition signatures.
“This kind of baseless suppression of the opposition is a serious violation of Taiwan’s democratic rule of law,” Chu said in a social media post on Monday, while accusing prosecutors of becoming tools for political persecution.
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Last week, prosecutors in New Taipei City questioned 20 people and detained 10 of them, including three local KMT officials, over alleged fraud in signature collection relating to four recall petitions.