A lawmaker hurled her shoes at the speaker of Taiwan’s Parliament, grazing his face and smacking into a colleague, in a mass brawl on Friday over a controversial Bill on the island’s top election body.
As curses flew, television pictures showed a crowd of legislators from the governing Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) angrily occupying the podium in a bid to stop voting by the opposition-controlled legislature.
During the scuffle, the DPP’s Wang Shu-hui threw her shoes at speaker Wang Jin-pyng of the opposition Kuomintang (KMT). They grazed his face and struck a colleague.
Angered by the attack, independent legislator Yen Chin-Piao shouted curses at the woman while others chanted ”protect the speaker” or ”negotiations” and pushed and shoved each other.
A DPP lawmaker suffered minor bruises.
The scheduled vote had to be suspended.
The clashes erupted when DPP lawmakers attempted to bar voting of a Bill on the formation of the Central Election Commission because of disagreement with the opposition on details of the measure.
Currently, members are nominated by the premier for presidential approval, but the opposition wants them assigned in proportion to the number of seats held by the political parties.
The KMT holds 90 seats and, together with the 22 of its People First Party ally, controls the 219-seat Parliament against the DPP’s 84 seats. — AFP
