TAIPEI (TVBS News) — Taiwan's political landscape grew increasingly turbulent Monday (April 28) as a prominent opposition leader claimed widespread public dissatisfaction with the presidency. Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌), chairman of the Taiwan People's Party (TPP, 民眾黨), a centrist political force founded in 2019, argued that significant numbers of citizens are demanding President Lai Ching-te's resignation nearly one year into his term. The opposition leader delivered a scathing assessment of the administration, accusing it of producing nothing but societal division rather than meaningful policy achievements during its first year in office.
The TPP chairman accused legislators from the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP, 民進黨) of improperly protecting the president from accountability in the Legislative Yuan (立法院), Taiwan's parliament, and allegedly circulating misinformation to deflect criticism. Huang suggested cryptically that the public would respond appropriately to these tactics. His party colleague, legislator Chang Chi-kai (張啓楷), then detailed Taiwan's constitutional mechanism for removing a sitting president — a complex four-stage process requiring the president to have served at least one year, followed by a formal proposal endorsed by one-quarter of all legislators, subsequent approval by a two-thirds parliamentary majority, and finally, passage of a nationwide referendum.
While acknowledging the significant parliamentary hurdle posed by the two-thirds approval requirement, Chang expressed determination that this threshold could be overcome through concerted political effort. The TPP legislator proposed a strategic two-pronged approach targeting both President Lai and 14 specific DPP legislators for recall. The recall movement gained additional momentum when Kuomintang (KMT, 國民黨) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫), leader of Taiwan's main opposition party, separately announced plans to initiate a comprehensive nationwide recall campaign against President Lai immediately after the May 20 one-year anniversary of his presidency. ★