onlookers were astonished

Taiwanese politics remains lively:

Yesterday, Liberty Square was opened and hordes of peole entered to take photographs, including newly weds. Taichung Third District's Legislature candidate Lin Chun-tung of the Liberal Democratic Party climbed up the stele in the plaza, took off his pants and urinated intoa cup. He yelled: "At Liberty Square, you are at liberty to do whatever you want." Onlookers were astonished at the sight.

And:

The DPP lawmakers went to the Ministry of Education in support of Chuang Kuo-jung, but a female heckler showed up unvited and yelled: "Down with Ah Bian! Taiwan is finished! Taiwan is finished! ... "I am trying to save my family, my children, my husband and my country. The people at the Ministry of Education are all trash." She yelled so forcefully that her dentures fell out.

Engagement. That’s what we need. In other lively Taiwanese politics news, a truck driver with reported connections to the deep blue faction of the Kuomintang ran his truck into a crowd celebrating the renaming of the Chiang Kai-shek memorial hall, and DPP legislators threw the speaker of the Taiwanese parliament out of the building and piled furniture against the door to stop him getting back in.

Some folk think that all these hi-jinks don’t do much for the image of democracy in he Chinese speaking world. Each to their own, I guess. But I prefer it to this.

Anyway. This was today's edition of lively Taiwanese politics. Thank you and have a good night.

Comments

[Tom]

Such goings-on are all too few and far between in British politics too.

Am I right in remembering that Michael Heseltine once seized the mace in the House of Commons and tried to belt someone with it? Or was that just a particularly freaky dream?

Technically treasonous, that, I think, as the mace is the symbol of the Queen...

[ejh]

He seized the mace while Labour backbenchers were singing The Red Flag (yes, it was a long time ago) but I think anything beyond that is probably invention.

[jamie]

The late Ron Brown did a bit of mace fondling to, I recall.

[Alex]

Same period. Brown managed to drop it, presumably because he was pissed, and was ordered to pay for the repairs; he complained bitterly, saying that "if you are worried about a bauble, Mr Speaker, you are worried about nothing" and that he would find some unemployed engineering workers in his constituency to do the job.

Nobody seems to go in for mace-seizing any more.